minimalism letter
Dear Seeker,
Autumn is upon us, and I do not think the shedding trees are minimalists. They are messy, they are surviving, they are observing their own needs and the world in the diminishing light, they are transitioning and preparing accordingly. I am no Minimalist, not anymore.
I have noticed, in a few facets of our punk* communities, the urge to pursue opposites on a binary when something doesn’t work.
*(punk here meaning non-conformist, often nerdy, or ‘other’, embracing lifestyles that flow against the mainstream)
For example—
More didn’t work, how about less?
Urban didn’t work, how about rural?
Monogamy didn’t work, how about poly?
Society didn’t work, how about isolation?
I spoke at length about this in my ‘you need larp, not a cabin in the woods’ video; but I think pursuing the opposite of what didn’t work is answering the wrong question.
We need to try something different instead of operating on the same binary.
Instead of eschewing society in favor of a cabin in the woods, we need deep connection and dedicated time with like-minded folks. We need tribe.
Instead of getting rid of all of your stuff to become minimalist (which I believe still frames our relationship with objects as inherently consumerist), we need a better understanding of what went wrong in the first place.
Minimalism is Avoidant
What is minimalism? No. More interestingly: why does each new wave of minimalism behave as though it is a completely new concept, unburdened with historical significance? Why do we feel ‘minimalism’ is new, modern, when it has been an ascetic movement for millennia, with a trackable history, going in and out of vogue? Why does it avoid its own history?
Does the radical feeling of ‘minimalism’ diminish if we acknowledge this is just another rise that will eventually fall?
Minimalism encourages the same sort of complacency, isolation, and disconnection I have observed in the ‘into the wild’ philosophies and movements.
I posit that minimalism is an avoidant strategy, rising in popularity whenever the world feels hostile or catastrophic. More and more flock to clean up their homes, the places they can most control, because cleaning up the world seems impossible.
Many minimalists flee, becoming nomadic or exceedingly rural, to avoid. They run— but society catches up; see Marfa, Texas.
And I understand the urge, I am filled by the need to DO something, to escape. I channel that into paring down my objects, digital minimalism, ignoring the news, tuning out. I plot to move somewhere else, to leave the country, to travel— I prioritize myself.
I become the bystander. By ignoring the status quo, though I might choose revolution if I knew how, I am privileged to be reinforcing it. I practice civil inattention, I close my eyes, I survive.
But I want my philosophy to encode a way to LIVE, not just survive alone. So Minimalism, as it is often practiced today, is not a philosophy I can condone, even as it serves me.
(November 2023: do let me step this back— minimalist philosophy at its best does mean more engagement with the world, not less. It encourages not escape, but intention. This is what drew me to the practice in the first place. But... I find, in application, people seem to use minimalism to retreat, to hold themselves separate, at times to look down their noses at others, to shirk common responsibility.)
— Minimalism for ADHD —
I think my original attraction to minimalism, partially, was a subconscious coping mechanism to deal with my ADHD.
I have always excelled in smaller spaces with less things, and floundered in larger ones with more things. My college dorm room, and the few suitcases that went into it, was sublime. My tiny condo post college was perfect. Even my childhood bedroom was a small sanctuary, and I was limited in my collecting of additional things by the room I had to store them.
This changed dramatically when I bought a big house. I have learned in the years since, a larger space means an unhappy, unartistic Aimee, who struggles to accomplish anything day to day. I would do better living in a hotel room.
I have left behind all the larger spaces in my past, and now live in a tiny but well placed apartment— the creative juices flow once more! With less, I know where everything is, visible and findable.
A small space, small wardrobe, small household— it all means less distractions for a distractible mind.
I have chosen to live more simply than I can probably afford, to purchase less, make do with what I have, improvise.
Like most philosophies, minimalism attempts to address the very human desire to live a life that matters. By living with less, maybe we can figure out what that is, and focus on it.
But there is a dark side— the above encourages one to focus on the self, the internal world over the external.
To preserve the self, minimalism encourages me to withdraw, and withdraw I do. I avoid the news, social media, topical content. In many ways, I personally do better in isolation from the internet as a whole— I have to take care in my interactions with it. And of course, fuck the giant platforms that use our curiosity and desire for connection to serve us up to advertisers with addicting, manipulative, incendiary content.
But seclusion? How can you live a life that truly matters if you ignore the suffering in the world? If you do nothing to change it? (and can one make art in true isolation anyway? …perhaps.)
— Prescriptive Minimalism —
So what is minimalism? I refuse to define. By defining it with rules (i.e., fold your clothes this way, you can only have 300 objects), we reduce it to a prescribed, one path, homogenized ideal; inaccessible to many, and unhelpful to most.
Fold your clothes in a particular way. Hang your wardrobe rising to the right. Place boxes in your drawers, keep counters cleared.
Ahh, how wonderful it feels to follow particular rules— especially when the results are visibly correct or incorrect. Forget philosophy or addressing why your current life sucks— pursue aesthetic. Choose emptiness over personality. Deal with the external, and expect the internal to follow.
The world is a mess, but my counters are clean, so I have done enough.
Certainly it is pragmatic, and for a little while, you may feel better about yourself. Superior, even.
Efficiency and minimalism is contemporary luxury, as surely as time is money. The elite dress and decorate their homes minimally. Empty space is expensive, and the poor cannot afford it. Necessity means gentle hoarding— how can I pare down my objects when I might not be able to afford them again, if I suddenly have need?
Minimalism could have been a way to highlight our own preferences, accessible to all, eclectic interior design— surely if you and I both have very few objects, the objects we keep and display would say that much more about our personal styles? Yet modern minimalism is all sameness.
Marie Kondo = a prescriptive minimalist. She describes her path in orthodoxical terms, read as objective truth. In her, we trade the cult of consumerism for the cult of tidiness, one-size-fits-all, and it has helped to homogenize a Minimalist aesthetic. But her path is only one path! How different would a dozen other fully formed, cultural paths to minimalism be? Yet it is too late— her religion has capitalized the M.
— Voluntary Simplicity —
So I am no Minimalist. That capital M makes a large difference to me.
I practice, as best I can, voluntary simplicity, not Minimalism for its own sake. Not for virtue signaling or aesthetic— but intentional living. I identify my essential; beauty, expression, love, comfort, movement, and, like everyone else, hope to live a life that matters.
———
Wishing you a wonderful autumn, I believe I am ready again to molt these reddening leaves! I look forward to your reply— can you define minimalism? ought you to?
Your humble tree,
Aimee