I think the cumulative value of all the resources ever paid for by many subsistence farmers or others considered "poor" on a world scale probably wouldn't add up to the cost of the MacBook Pro in Andrew's laptop. I believe his demands on infrastructure may be a little more too. So are mine.

Of course Andrew's claim to minimalism is only relative to most people in the developed world. But there are tens of thousands of twentysomethings from developed countries travelling the world for extended periods of time with a similar amount of luggage (Most of us spend a bit more on clothes and a bit less on laptops; guess it depends on whether you prefer the inconvenience of laundry or Windows!) It seems to be as mandatory as national service for youthful Australians (and a mandatory experience after national service for Israelis). The secret about life on the road being fun got out a while ago.

It's not Andrew's fault, of course, if news coverage tries to turn him into some sort of innovator he's perhaps never claimed to be.

>So when you say the words "real minimalist", who am I supposed to see in my mind's eye?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dieter_Rams#Rams.27_ten_princip...

Hidden complexity isn't minimalism. True minimalism demands fundamental simplicity. Minimalism makes the truth of a product, a process or a place more obvious, rather than obfuscating it behind white melamine. The actuality of less.

Minimalist lifestyle choices are those that positively simplify, that meaningfully reduce the total impact of our lives. Eating soy rather than beef, eating local strawberries in June rather than air-freighted strawberries in December. Insulation over of heating, two wheels over four. Measuring the size of your lifestyle in kilowatt-hours and hectares and litres.

If you're looking for the living embodiment, see Jason Rohrer. http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/jason-rohrer/simpleLife.ht...

I think you're right about words describing styles being flexible but wrong given the amount of flexibility you expect and the examples you've given. Minimalism, in every example I can think of, has a context. What you've described is a minimalist percussion exhibition and a minimalist recording. If you asked some people to describe those two things I expect you would get some similar thoughts. The focus is on the recording and not the location of the recording. The studio would not be a focus on whether the recording was or was not minimalist.

But there are assumptions, context, about lifestyle minimalism that the minimalism supports some goal to minimize consumption with an eye toward "the things we own end up owning us" and to keep their footprint small. The gp notes that the subject of the article has not actually done that, he's just pushed consumption off onto other people and businesses. An example you asked for of someone who lives minimalistically is a myth I heard as a kid about people who could fit everything into their VW Bug and be on their way.

I guess I don't think you're wrong so much as right but the gp's assumptions are common and more accurate to how minimalism is usually thought about.

Did you actually mean to say that traveling the world on an airplane with a backpack is not minimalist, but driving around the country in a classic VW Bug - a fossil-fueled vehicle which is considerably less efficient per passenger-mile than a passenger jet - is minimalist? That driving around on a publicly-funded, continuously-maintained network of asphalt doesn't constitute "pushing consumption off onto others"?

One eventually realizes that minimalism of any kind is a trick of the mind. Nothing is really simple, even things that aren't alive, and nothing really exists in isolation. A thing can be minimal only relative to something else, and only along a limited axis, and only so long as you don't think too deeply.

(Did I just say that Trio's classic "Da Da Da" has only one note? Oops, I lied, I didn't look deeply enough: The chorus has a background singer, and though she - it sounds like a she - is designed to be a minimalist background singer she does sing multiple notes, adding vital depth and texture and helping to make the chorus sound so awesome: It's a joke of a chorus, but it's so much more musically rich than the verse that it sounds like heaven when it arrives.)

By the example I do not mean driving around the country but keeping owned objects down to a manageable amount where moving easily is possible. But that will turn into an uninteresting side topic as -internet- discussion sometimes does. I have a habit of looking for ways for people to agree and what assumptions are causing disagreement. I believe I've accurately described your initial disagreement with detrich as a difference of assumptions about a definition. To me minimalism is keeping the number of chunks one has to consider low enough so up and moving to another city, by car or plane, is easy. (I can't find that Trio's song. But I'm not sure you mentioned it before either.)

try Buddhist monk, esp. of the species of "forest dweller".