No one should begrudge you a well-stocked and well-used workshop. That’s not what the minimalist message is supposed to be about. It’s the stuff accumulated carelessly, just because you could. Decorative doo-dads, outfits worn once, toys from kids long since grown, furniture retained out of a sense of duty. The suburban middle-class lifestyle I grew up in has a tendency to accumulate a monotonically increasing volume of possessions without much thought. My grandparents have more square footage than my entire apartment dedicated to the storage of useless, meaningless crap. It is, in fact, a necessary and useful message for many people to be more deliberate about what you choose to buy and retain. If the only things you can think to cut are tools, you are not one of those people.
The problem is that "practical utility" isn't always obvious. I have boxes and boxes of components and other oddments that collectively form a useful library, but I have no way of predicting which specific oddments will be useful in future. Any given item is currently useless, but might become extremely useful at some indeterminable point in the future. There's a very fine line between a prepper and a hoarder.
One thing I’ve noticed is that if I can’t find something, its utility is basically zero. If I forget I have it, even more so. Also, things cluttering up a room (visually and in terms of physical space) feel like clutter. So, ideally a collection would be organized enough (which could mean stuff is just piled in boxes, but I’m sufficiently familiar with the boxes), and stored in a suitable place.
I think there’s a lot of power in encouraging people to get rid of stuff that they actually would be happier if they got rid of, by helping them make their own authentic determination.
I thought "good thing everything on those drives is backed up, and nothing critical was lost."
Yesterday I got a call from one of the former owners of one of these drives. They lost the USB stick I gave them a long time ago with their software license key that I pulled from one of those drives.
The drives I had been hoarding could have saved us $500 on Adelo POS software. One man's trash really can be another's treasure.
I got an old blue shirt and it suits me just fine
I like the way it feels so I wear it all the time
I got an old guitar, won't ever stay in tune
I like the way it sounds in a dark and empty room
I got an old pair of boots and they fit just right
Well I can work all day and I can dance all night
I got an old used car and it runs just like a top
I get the feeling it ain`t ever going to stop
[Chorus]
Stuff that works, stuff that holds up
The kind of stuff you don`t hang on the wall
Stuff that`s real, stuff you feel
The kind of stuff you reach for when you fall
https://genius.com/Guy-clark-stuff-that-works-lyrics#note-85...
You accumulate stuff carelessly because storage cost is zero. Even old junk can be source of aluminium block for machining, steel bar for welding or copper coil for wires.
Not at all.
Minimalism isn't the ideology that (less is more)==(less things). That comes from people appropriating philosophies to compete for attention on social media, where everything is at best one-dimensional because the point is to entertain not educate. No, minimalism as a philosophy means (less is more)==(object-essentialism). You initialize solutions among what you have, and factor the time, resource, and opportunity cost into the cost-benefit of acquiring a new object. So, as I mentioned, if acquiring a backyard of junk cars is more cost-benefit savvy than having to acquire a new junk car every time you need a resource from one, it's minimalist. However, if you acquire a junk car that adds what you already have a sufficient amount of, it's frivolity.
And frivolity isn't a relevant category to minimalism. You could be minimalist in achieving frivolous ends. Clearly you're carrying too much in the term.
Wikipedia has it as: "The term minimalist often colloquially refers to anything that is spare or stripped to its essentials."
Oxford Dictionary as: "a style of art, music or design that uses very simple ideas or a very small number of simple elements"
So in my opinion, having rusting car wrecks around in an old shed with the intent to re-use their essential spare parts later is perfectly compatible with minimalism, and what I would expect someone with the skill set and space to do so.
Contrast that with a large garage where numerous expensive cars are being parked and continuously maintained as well as cost of electricity, cleaning, security etc. for the building, although the cars are pretty much never driven.
That would be much closer to a minimalists nightmare. Not the self reliant utilitarian guy with the old shed.
The first is minimalist because it involves less physical material to store and organize. The second is self reliant because you can do for yourself without needing to draw on outside systems as much.
The example you gave is just moving the goal posts completely. The large many car garage case is both less minimalist and less self reliant, so not to the point.
This seems tautological or uselessly subjective. What is a possession without practical value? You seem to have talked yourself out of seeing the value in possessions you own. Perhaps you are simply anxious.
How this attitude began to be associated with the minimalist design movement I have no clue.
...bought in to what?
Token gifts that have been gifts for the sake of gifting something.
Most things in a souvenir store.
> Token gifts that have been gifts for the sake of gifting something.
There is utility value in sentimental gifts, too, but it's obviously subjective. Why not just say "get rid of items that stress you out", like people have been doing the entirety of human history? That's hardly a social movement or a lifestyle, though.
As I got more serious about cooking I donated a lot of extra pans and doo-dads. Previously, I would just collect things and as I learned more about what made something good and why, I could narrow down to 1 or 2 higher quality items (knives, pans, etc). As I learned more techniques, I needed fewer specialty items.
To your point, having a lawn service means not needing a mower. Hiring out a painting service means not having old buckets, brushes, tarps, etc, laying around.
I do think (at least Americans) hoard. I know there's been a few times where I know I had something, but I didn't know where and considered just buying another. To me, that's worse than donating or giving it away years before. I know a lot of people pay monthly for self-storage, but probably don't know what's in there or wouldn't take the time to retrieve something. To me, this is what the Marie Kondo book was targeting.
Same experience here. Conclusion : if we'd educate people better on how to cook rather than showing them hours of advertising on the latest magical tool to cook a steak, we'd make their life easier and so much more minimalist.
So, in my experience, if you learn to cook and accept that cooking takes a bit more time you mainly need (for french cuisine) :
- 1 or 2 frying pan (buy a large one, multi-ply, heavy stuff, it's expensive : around 150 euro each, but will outlast you) - a cast iron casserole (for long cook) - just one teflon-like pan for frying fish (frying fish without that is possible but requires a lot of fat) - a few cooking pots (buy inox) - a short knife (buy expensive, around 60€, make sure the blade goes to the end of the handle) - a chef knife (ditto) - a big wooden cutting board (it allows you to use your chef knife efficiently) - 2 or three large bowls (inox or earthenware, no plastic) - a hand blender - a whisker - learn to use your oven if you have one, it's very useful - baking paper is very useful and cheap the rest just comes from regular stuff (glasses, regular knife, spoons, etc)
with that material you can go a loooooong way.
(forget about KitchenAid, Cookeo, and many other things)
etc.
There's plenty of alternatives to actually cooking.
That's like saying that you're lighting money on fire when you play video games or watch tv. You could have just went to the library and rented a book for free. It's the same logic and could be applied to almost any aspect of entertainment or really anything that could ever be considered "extra."
You're lighting money on fire by cooking all that food. Eat rice and chicken broth and take a multivitamin. You're probably getting more nutrients that way than most of America anyway. So anything extra would be lighting money on fire right? That steak cost way more than those eggs, that bread costs more than rice; light the money on fire.
See what I did there?
Just because there is a cheaper alternative out there does not automatically mean that the more expensive option is a waste of money...
So, by spending an hour every day (excluding going to the store to buy ingredients, which we all know takes no time, or browsing the specialist windowsill rice growing forums, which of course also take no time) I can save $10, give or take. If I work that hour, I will make, well, it doesn't matter, but it's more than $10. So, every time I order takeaway, I save money.
I know this reasoning may not apply to everyone, but saying that it's like "lighting money on fire" is quite simplistic.
(My local currency is not $, but whatever)
Of course there is a time cost in shopping, but the broccoli and rice made up a small part of the shopping runs that included them.
For a comparison, down here, we make 3 servings of a pizza which is around 10€. A McDonald is 8€ for 1 serving. A Chinese meal is around 9€ for 2 servings. French fries + meat balls are 10€ for 4 servings. SO the cheapest is more than the double of the price I pay to make my own stuff.
Today, I've spent 1.5 hours cooking (but that a more involved recipe, I do the usual stuff twice faster), and I'll spend an additional .5 hour on the dishes. Ordering takeaway, and going to take them at the shop is about 30 min. So that's much faster for the takeaways.
But as I said : I control what I eat (more vegetables, less salt, less fat, less sugar), I enjoy a lot of variety too (I can cook a hundred dishes, with various level of complexity). Also, I enjoy it, but as said before, that's quite personal.
Oh, btw, today's recipe :
- grounded pork/veal 600grams
- mince a big carrot and the equivalent volume of onions. Slowly cook them with olive oil (let the pan covered, it will cook with its water)
- heat a good glass of white wine to remove alcohol (say, boiling during 3 minutes). Put the white wine on the cooked carrot/onions.
- cook some green cabbage leaves, say 15 big ones in boiling water for around 7 minutes. Cold them in cool water, dry them.
- put the leaves on a big plate, then put the meat iin one layer on top of it.
- roll the whole thing, put it with the carrot/onions/whine
- add garlic
- cover and cook slowly for 30 to 40 minutes.
- instead of waiting, take 20 grams of wheat, 20 grams of butter and mix them together (no heating !).
- once the meat is cooked, remove the big roll, and put the cooking juice away, in another pan, bring it to a boil. Lower the heat. Put your wheat/butter (say 20 grams at once). Whisk that, the sauce becomes more creamy.
- and now, serve slices of the roll, the carrots/onions, add the sauce and some regular rice. Et voilà
To this point, there is a certain luxury in being able to keep stuff around, to even have the space for it to begin with. If I own a studio apartment I don't have room for random 2x4's to come save the metaphorical day.
Those 2x4s saved the literal day for us as the time away would've cost us a day's work ;)
I am inclined to disagree here and will say you're not making the full calculation.
One of the biggest costs that most people have in their life is paying for a place to live (be it rent or buying and maybe paying back for that). If you have fewer things this allows you to have a smaller space to live in. The reduced costs from that will more than make up for the occasional "I have to buy something that I might still have if I hadn't gotten rid of it a few years ago".
In general, the poorer people I know aren't almost-homeless poor. Maybe they're just bad at managing everything (money, time, assets). They tend to be paying for those storage spaces. I see those storage spaces everywhere. I'm kind of curious what the average demographic is--like you say, space is expensive. I have used them, but only during transitions for a few months at a time. The terms of the contract made me think I wasn't the norm.
Your comment reminded me that my brother travels significantly more than I do, but travels with so much. I travel a few times a year, but absolutely hate having extra stuff. For me it's not about the cost of having an extra bag. It's about not wanting to wait for checked luggage, slinging around another extra bag (or just one heavier one), and not carrying it around. I'm sure he has his reasons for over-packing (perhaps being prepared, having appropriate attire means more to him), but for neither it's about the money. I'm sure for some people is is, though.
Or you could be a minimalist who prefers the mostly empty feeling of a large home filled with few things, just like web designers who place huge margins everywhere.
Minimalism means not having a lawn which needs mowing, nor walls in need of painting.
People brag about how little they own, and it looks perfect until you ask about the logistics of it. You quickly find out that their minimalist existence is often propped by cheap third-world labour, or by a complete lack of financial planning. They don't own any of the tooks they need to fend for themselves.
In a sense, their lifestyle is only possible as other people are there to support it. Someone else has to provide the tools, and usually the expertise.
This doesn't jive with the folks that brag about minimizing possessions - because it requires such. They might do digital art... maybe.
And rent a stocked studio? Most folks on earth aren't near such a thing nor is it something most folks can do. The few times I've seen any of this, you can't simply rent (and none have been near me). You have to apply to make sure you are good enough and do the right sort of art. At that point, you are representing the studio.
This goes for a lot of hobbies that requires a number of tools, supplies, and space, though. Simpy doing active work requires space and stuff - and some of it might go for months without use because you use different tools in different stages of work. (A woodworker might use a planer, but not every day and rarely if a piece takes a few months).
Actual, truthful minimalism accounts for this, but that wasn't what the topic in this thread was: It was the unobtainable minimalism that creates those that brag about having few possessions... and wind up having to rely on the labors of others to do sometimes basic things.
I suppose folks can give away their pictures, but I'd quickly run out of folks to give away to - hence my corner of finished art :)
I don't get it. What are you talking about?
In these times, we are drowning, not starving. It's crazy how much toys my kids have and it keeps coming. They can't even find their fun toys amongst all the junk.
You can buy anything at any given moment, and people keep giving you junk on top of it, because all holidays are now commercialised and you have to give and receive junk from everyone.
For myself, I have both the "maybe I'll need it one day" and "I have too much junk".
A good part of the few things I own, are actually tools to fix the other things with or build them in the first place. Also buying fewer things, means I can optimize more easily for quality and longevity, and that there are just fewer things that can break.
Arguably, taken minimalism to the extreme, the basic tools is what you should be left with. In my opinion, the biggest problem with minimalism is, that it should be highly individualistic, whereas most societies have a big group-think component to it about how you should behave, what you should own, etc.
E.g. I don't have any specific tools or spare parts related to fixing a car, because I don't have a car, because it wouldn't add more value than cost to my life. But just because that is true for myself, doesn't make it so for someone else. And on the other hand, I own things that I value highly, but that would just gather dust in another household.
[1] I identify more with the Swedish term "Lagom", which roughly translates to "just the right amount", and is more about appreciation of what you have, not about pushing for reduction.
In my own little vision for a self reliant future i see room for lots of stuff...buildings, equipment, many tools, small ag, etc. Definitely in line with your comment.
They have people drive them to Costco and the court. They take buses and it is not uncommon in an Amish Community for one of them to have a phone line in a barn for emergencies.I have seen them use farm equipment that they technically shouldn't use and plenty of them just farm out the labor to someone who will use the equipment. They usually have "go to" people outside of the Amish sect that does shit for them that technically goes against their beliefs.
I have lived around Amish people my entire life. I am in a county that is famous for them. They are in no way self reliant. They are a cult that at this point, only half asses their own ideology.
You have a big misconception about Amish. They are not minimalists in any sense of the word. Don't let the button thing fool you. They're just a shitty cult at this point.
And the Amish definitely pay taxes, even for schools which they don't use. (An exception is social security in the US because they were exempted from the very start, but they can't collect it either.)
Also, how is having horses pull buggies cruelty to animals? Horses are working animals, and it's no great hardship for them to pull a buggy or a plough. They can be overworked or treated roughly, but so can any animal.
pretty sure that horses would disagree ;)
Every description I have seen of minimalism has not been centered around self-reliance, but around anti-materialism. Since we live in a society where our collective production output and efficiency is higher than it has ever been throughout human history, it's easier than ever to collect property that has limited or no real use, and consume without being mindful of the effect it has on our environment or at the very least on your own economy.
So, in my mind, "minimalism", whatever that means, is not a means to self-reliance, it's a questioning of modern consumerism and whether we are perhaps over-spending on things that do not improve our lives. Whoever is trying to combine minimalism with "prepping", "self-reliance", call it what you will, is at the very least confused in my book.
It didn't take much for man to realize he could do more by trusting another than figuring out how to do everything on his own.
There's usually some overhead involved too: finding labour, scheduling appointments, bringing your car to the dealership etc. Doing your own oil change takes less time than driving to the garage.
You don't have to do everything on your own, but I'd save the experts for the important challenges.
Not to mention that a job that it might take a service 1h's worth of labour to do may take me 2-3h, amortized with the learning curve (say, 4-5h first time I try, and eventually down to 1.5-2h after I've done it a few times).
I do my own motorcycle repairs, because I sometimes stray far from the nearest mechanic, and field repairs can be necessary. I also cook a lot, because I have to eat every day and restaurants are expensive.
However, I paid someone to rebuild my forks, and I buy pre-made pie shells. Those things are not worth doing myself. My father rebuilds engines in his garage, but won't change the oil on a slush-covered car. He'll pay someone else to do it.
I guess it depends on how pleasant the job is to you, how often you need it done, and how much it costs to get it done relative to your own salary.
Yes, this is the most important point I think.
That cuts both ways though. I'd rather work 28 hours/week and spend more time fixing stuff myself. But jobs largely come as 40 hours/week (there are exceptions, but they would mean compromising on field, location or both, at least for me); if I could work 70% of the time for 50% of the pay I probably would.
The more I've read about the lives of 19th century pioneers the more I've realized that even they depended on something more akin to modern supply chains than on real self sufficiency.
Truly self reliant peoples live in poverty. I know no counter example.
You cannot help anyone else unless you have some minimal level of self-reliance. That’s why airlines tell you to fit your own oxygen mask before trying to help anyone else.
Some of the happiest days of my life have been when I labored to field dress a moose I had just shot and then canoe with it for days down an isolated river near the arctic. Or helping my brother build his house or working in the vegetable garden.
If you call that poverty, you're missing the point entirely.
I believe your disconnect comes from you thinking "The only kind of minimalism is extreme minimalism" which doesn't have to be true. I have a lot less "stuff" than most people, so I consider my self a minimalist, but I still have possessions I value and enjoy that I'm not capable of making or repairing myself (rifle, laptop). That's OK. Minimalism doesn't mean "Have nothing you didn't make with you own bare hands", it means "Have less things, and only the things that bring you happiness". Like so many things in life, it's not black and white like you're trying to make it out to be.
Your dad is capable of repairing anything because he has the mindset, creativity and skills. Were he rich he could take that same self reliance down to the local hardware store and buy what he needs to repair anything.
Though arguably if he were richer he wouldn’t be repairing so much, he’d be doing something else successfully as a self reliant guy.
The higher you go the more abstract what your self brings to the table becomes. It’s obvious that your dad relies on himself and his possessions. A self reliant guy in a company can easily have his natural ability and organized self reliance hidden under metrics and overlooked by class groupings.
For example, most people take having bread for granted. If you wish to become minimalist, the best way to attain bread is to buy it. If you wish to become self reliant then you must possess ingredients and tools for making bread such as flour, yeast, a pan and an oven. To be minimalist and self reliant you must forgo bread and eat instead for grain something like wetted millet.
So you could just eat wheat but IDK how digestible that is. Perhaps someone here does?Cream of Wheat and Malt'O'Meal are the closest I've had.
Another example would be simple car maintenance. A minimalist would pay for an oil change.
One may want to become more self reliant and begin changing one's own oil. In this case you will need a catch basin, a funnel, new oil and filter. You may need a jack, jack stands and a specialty wrench.
You could become both more self reliant and more minimalist by getting rid of your car. If you live in an area with good transportation you will become slightly inconvenienced. If you live in a place with bad transportation you will become significantly impoverished.
Why not buy bread (as GP said), cut it, and freeze it? Surely that would be a minimalist approach.
Minimalism is not reinventing how to do everything, but just having what's needed now. If bread is your breakfast, then it's what's needed daily.
FYI: it's possible to be a mechanic and a minimalist. Owning equipment in a garage is not anti-minimalism, it's just common sense. Especially if you have multiple cars (e.g. a family).
Imagine instead that you grow your own wheat. You can cook the grain for hours over an open fire. And poor people did such with various grains as their daily meal for generations. That's a state that's pretty minimalist, pretty self reliant and pretty impoverished.
But if you want to make bread you must possess a mill to grind it, a source of yeast and all the other implements to make bread. To decrease your poverty you have to decrease you minimalism by owning all these things and now having them as a concern in your life or you must decrease your self reliance and depend on someone else having a mill to grind your flour or bakery to have an oven.
Trust me, as someone who is very DIY. The more self reliant you become, the less minimal your life becomes.
Why?
If you take minimalism to the extreme, and keep stripping away until reaching the bare essentials of living, then the basic tools and materials are what you left with.
It would be "against" minimalism (which is not well defined anyway) to buy say a chain saw because you think you might need it one day or need it for a one off job, instead of borrowing it from a neighbor or yes, paying (monetary or through favors) someone to do it.
Nothing wrong with relying on society to a degree.
If you want to be self reliant without having a lot of money to waste, you'll have to practice minimalism. Not the inner city hipster version of it, but being mindful of what the utility and value of all the things you have is.
Are you trying to be a homesteader, entirely off-grid and not reliant on society? Or are you trying to be financially self-reliant, not relying on a paycheck? Or are you trying to be personally less reliant on things and items? These are all different ideas that get wrapped up into this conversation, and like the OP said, they're not all compatible.
If you want to be an off-grid homesteader, you're going to need a lot of tools, materials and skills. If you want to be less reliant on things, then you are going to have to be content with being able to do less.
None of those things are bad, but the conversation is incomplete if we don't make clear what we're really talking about when we talking about self-reliance and minimalism.
Minimalism is about having what is essential to a fulfill a certain need or goal. What is essential varies from person to person and of course is vastly different whatever we are talking about a software engineer living in a city apartment vs. a farmer.
So I see minimalism being about prioritization. During "normal" circumstances it is pretty much purely voluntary, but the more self reliant you want to be, the more it becomes a necessity. With limited resources you have to prioritize what tools, skills and materials you acquire in what order, quality and quantity. You end up with good enough, minimal solutions for a lot of the problems.
My farmer grand parents where 10x the minimalists I ever was in my view. But for them, it was just how they grew up, not a lifestyle choice about aesthetics.
This is what I mean by poverty. Most people who are ingenious live a balance of self reliance, minimalism (usually due to lack of money) and poverty.
By poverty I do not mean that taking one step into self reliance makes you instantly impoverished but it frequently means doing without some luxury or need fullfiled that people are accustomed to. It usually comes in the form of "making do".
No you don't. A big pile of junk is no drain on your self-reliance; if you're living in the kind of place where you can even begin to hope to produce your own food then space is not going to be an issue.
My fathers side of the family is all farmers for generations. They piled up a lot of junk and reused continously around the properties. But those weren't just random piles, but sorted and to a degree inventoried and cleaned so it can be used efficiently.
They could e.g. plan ahead for new projects how much can be build from scrap vs new materials.
Sure just throwing stuff on a pile doesnt cost you anything, but i dont see how you are going to reuse that stuff somewhat efficiently later without upfront assigning some value to different types of junk
My father, a man capable of building or repairing almost anything to his need lives with a shop entirely full of junk. And frequently the scrap iron or 2x4 I have mocked him for retaining has come to the rescue and helped us avoid the 60 mile trip from his home into town.
The reality is, if you wish to combine self reliance and minimalism, you essentially must embrace a life of poverty.