Extremist Minimalism

I mentioned in a recent post about being influenced last year by Fumio Sasaki's "Goodbye, Things" which describes his journey towards a simpler and from his description, happier life through the gradual discarding of material possessions.

I can't help but admire the genuine benefits of de-cluttering that this achieves and it does make you think deeply about why we do become or can become so obseessed about hoarding, accumulating, increasing, purchasing the ever increasing things that come into our lives.

As impressed as I am regarding the ideas in the book, and I think 2019 will see me working towards eliminating many things I have come to have more than one of. I see clear benefits in the minimalism he writes about that I am prepared mentally to let go of many of my things.

The problem mentally for me  however is the life that Sasaki puts forward, the one where a brief daily cleaning routine followed by a stroll to a park where he can just be and watch ducks preen their feathers without any other concern ... and feel like those animals equally unconcerned and just living - or existing as being enough.

He mentions that his latest living space is 20 metre square and that he now wants to get down to 12 metre square which he writes another has gotten down to. This space with the very small number of possessions it entails must in his mind be a kind of nirvana.

Given that I cannot truly know what his state of mind is having achieved the minimising, my wife believes that all the arguments given regarding the benefits of the minimising are actually related to the drive to cut costs and live within his means. By cutting back way below the needed minimising he can make his low income become a surplus since rent is cheaper, subscriptions are minimised, upkeep and maintenance are all low.

So on the one hand there is the benefit to the mind of the de-cluttering. This is important I think. Our possessions are catalogued in our heads and I have to say that this was a great insight for me. We have a varying precision about where all the things we own are but the important stuff is first and foremost. One might not know how many rubber bands or paper clips one owns and where they all are but you would know how many properties or cars you own.

The de-cluttering of this mental database of possessions is an excellent thing in my view.  I'm certain we've all watch the opposite of minimalism in TV shows about extreme hoarders who fill every space in their houses with items that they cannot bear to get rid of. Their space becomes choked with items that creates a prison of their own construction.

And that is where a new idea emerges. The nirvana that Sasaki writes of seems to me to be almost a perfect description of the life that prison inmates live. In terms of space and material possessions at least. The minimalism there is even greater since the tasks of cleaning and cooking are offloaded as is the need to earn the income to support it all. It does bring to mind the people in America who commit crimes like robbing a bank of $1 in order to get into prison and thereby benefit from the better healthcare compared to their free lives.

I think it is true that a wealthy person has more things. The link to mental organisation of one's possessions seems to suggest to me that a bigger or more capable brain is able to own and care for more things than a "lesser" one.

At the moment then, it seems to me that one is in trouble if one has so many things that they don't know any more what they actually own. It's one of those thing I think that makes one think more about what it all really means. I'm certain that I will continue to minimise as I had already started a consolidation of sorts a few years ago but I think this year will definitely be shaped by the desire to continue to make the changes that will enable me to have a taste of the simpler life.