Musing on Minimalism

I found an interesting new blog today: becomingminimalist.com - particularly relevant given my current basement tidying project. (I'm making some progress, by the way; I condensed two and a half boxes of books down to one shelf yesterday ... albeit a very packed shelf. Still, I was proud of myself. I'm getting rid of a lot of boxes too. Chances are that if the products they contained haven't broken/needed to be returned by now, I won't need them ever. Certainly not for packing, since I don't envision moving for a long, long time - if ever!)

So on this site it was interesting to read about just how minimalist some people get, and also about the benefits of the process. A sense of freedom seems to be a big one. There's so much less to worry about, to organize and maintain, to buy in the first place. There definitely are different degrees of it, though, and different priorities. If traveling is key, you may want to live with practically nothing - both to save up money and to not have stuff you have to either store or tote around with you. But minimalism isn't about totally denying yourself either. If your passion is photography, for example, you'll want to buy a decent camera and a computer for editing. For an avid reader like me, then, minimalism may be 1000 books instead of 3000.

Of course space is a big concern. If you're a single person living in a 500 square foot apartment, you obviously don't need - and simply can't have - the same amount of stuff as if you're a family in a four-bedroom home. I suppose it's not being very minimalist, but I do think storage space has its virtues too (and especially so in a four-season climate). My fans and folding lawn chairs go down for the winter; heaters and humidifiers come up, for example. Definitely more economical than buying new each season. And of course we genuinely need four seasons worth of clothing too (although I know I have far too much of that as well - tackling my cupboard can be a winter project). So long as it doesn't approach hoarding proportions, it also pays to stock up on supplies like paper towels when they go on sale.

In the end, I guess, minimalism is what you make it. As a homebody who truly loves and uses and derives great pleasure from her possessions, I'm going to have more than a globetrotter. That's not to say I don't need to downsize, though, because I definitely do - if only so I don't have to keep wasting time shuffling stuff around and going through it over and over. I liked the idea on the site of "de-owning" ... or, even better, "releasing" your old possessions so that someone else can use them. (I have a strong aversion to throwing things out completely unless they're absolutely unusable.)

No matter what, though, I sense I will still have more than enough left. And I think I'm just an acquisitive kind of person - sort of like a squirrel or a crow. I could probably be living in a cave and still have all sorts of collections: rocks, feathers, shells etc. I even do it on my iPad, collecting thousands of apps, and on my computer, downloading all kinds of books. (Fortunately digital clutter doesn't take up much space or cost anything other than a backup hard drive or two, but it still does consume my time, which is precious too.) I don't need to deny who I am completely - just keep it under control. I'll never really be a minimalist, I think, but I can still work on becoming a better minimaliser.