547

 2025: new year's resolutions

Before stepping into 2025, my partner and I had a gentle conversation about new year's resolutions. I like contemplating them because they help me outline a beautiful future ahead. As critical realists, we don't believe that we can predict the future, but it's ok to dream about it and take gentle, and sometimes big, steps, to achieve what we hope to achieve. 

In my previous entry, I mentioned that 2025 will be another low buy year. But this is not one of our resolutions. It's just the way I've lived for the past 15 years or so, as I de-prioritised buying as an activity in my life as much as possible (while prioritising other things such as growth, creativity, love towards the self, human and non-human others, and nature). I simply plan to continue this journey. After re-reading my previous entry, I realised that it might come across as abstract. Going forward, I will try to be more concrete in this autoethnography what living with less and buying less actually looks like, for me, in reality. 

There are some new year's resolutions that my partner and I made together. These are:

To eat out less. We eat out very rarely, but we want to do it even less. We enjoy cooking and eating at home so much more. 

To share our knowledge with a broader audience. To us, as both academics and practitioners, it is so important to share knowledge about both our theory (of sustainability transformations) and practice with fellow humans. We do it via our academic books, articles and lectures. Most of the time, these reach fellow academics and students. Doing my autoethnography and making all of it public made me realise that in academia we don't do enough to reach more fellow humans. 

To dream about the future. Eventually, we would love to leave Copenhagen and live closer to nature. We would love for our yet unborn child to grow up with nature. And we would love to grow some of our own food. In nature, I feel more creative. I feel oneness and self-transcendence often. Moving elsewhere is not one of our new year's resolutions, but it's a dream that can be fulfilled if we work on it. 

There are also new year's resolutions that I made for myself:

To be in academia on my terms. After getting my PhD in 2020, I thought that I had to do what others did. To find a postdoc position and then try to get a permanent position. Such positions are generally not only scarce, but seem to be often offered to those fellow humans who have some history at the department. For example, those could be former PhD students and postdocs who stayed somewhere long enough. I left my postdoc position as an act of protest against harassment in academia and moved to another country. During this year as a researcher, I had much time to work on my own projects and contemplate how I wanted to relate with academia, what I was willing to accept and what I wasn't. For example, strategic networking is certainly not me. It does not feel authentic. Trying to hide my pregnancy and invent different strategies to erase it from my cv is not me either. The truth is, in the first trimester I felt incredibly unwell. I was hospitalised, constantly on medication, and sleeping a lot. I've never worked so few hours since I started school. And that's ok. If I publish less in the year I give birth, so be it. 

To invest more time in my autoethnography. This autoethnography originally existed as personal notes, starting from around 2010 when I stepped on a path of relating with the world differently and practising minimalism. A few years ago, I decided to turn it into a small academic project. From the very beginning, I made all my data public for research transparency reasons. Fellow humans started to read my notes/data as a blog. This allowed me to connect with many fellow practitioners from different walks of life. I feel deep gratitude for it. And even though this is not the work that brought academic positions my way (my research for many years has focused on sustainability in business and sustainability transformations), it is the most fulfilling and spiritually rewarding part of what I create and offer to the world. I plan to dedicate more time and energy to it in 2025.

546

 Another 'low buy' year

I don't usually refer to my practice as 'low buy', but I notice that many of my fellow humans in various sustainability movements (zero-waste, simple living, slow living, etc.) find this concept very useful. 

I've been practising minimalism, in constellation with various other practices such as slow living, zero-waste, and simple living for around 15 years. That is 15 years of generally consuming much less than what is the norm in our society. It has been a journey where I have made many mistakes and certainly invited into my life some things that I would later find unnecessary. Yet, living this way allowed me to make important and expensive decisions about my life and still live within my means. I would not be able to afford any of these decisions if I was consuming more. For example, doing my PhD, moving countries, resigning from my position as an act of protest, even stepping on the path of having a child are some of these decisions. 

Buying less does not feel like a sacrifice. The act of buying itself, I feel, receives too much attention, as well as energy and time, in our society. Other acts are so much more important! 

There are things that I buy, like most other humans. We always pay rent and bills. We buy food and pay for public transport when we can't walk somewhere. I buy medication whenever necessary/prescribed. We also buy items to maintain our home, such as dish brushes and baking soda. We replace personal care items such as toothbrushes, bar soap, and shampoo. And we replace clothes and shoes when they wear out. My partner pays for hairdressing services and massage, while I generally don't use such services. I cut my hair perhaps once in 2 years. We buy gifts for some family members for major holidays and when we visit someone. 

We also spend on less necessary things. For example, occasionally we eat out. It's one of our new year's resolutions to go out even less. I'm happy about it because I much prefer cooking and eating at home. At times, we buy plants and flowers for our home. In 2025, I would love to grow some tulips. 

We travel very rarely. I used to travel more often when I was younger, but as I walked further down my life's path, I realised that it felt much more authentic to me to explore and fall in love with the region where I live. Perhaps it's a season of my life when I have a deep desire for rootedness. In 2024, we went to Bornholm where my partner's family have had a summer house for generations. In 2025, I dream about going to Bornholm again, and perhaps exploring some other Danish islands too. 

If everything goes well with my pregnancy, in 2025 we will invite some baby items into our home. My intention is to continue practising extreme minimalism in this domain too. 

I don't have strict rules for my practice of buying less. This practice evolved organically, in a deep entanglement with a philosophy of life. 

545

 The joy of getting nothing for Christmas

This Christmas was very special. It was the first time when my loved ones honoured my gentle request to avoid inviting things into my life. For myself, I got a bar of soap that was made here in Denmark. During pregnancy, I've become even more sensitive to scents. This soap bar is unscented. Some fellow humans say to me that soap bars don't last as long because they melt in the shower. It was my experience too, but I keep soap bars outside the shower, though very close to it so I can reach it, on a small plate that my partner inherited from his grandparents (together with many similar plates of different sizes) - this is not a dedicated soap dish. In our bathroom, we have a window that I often open to keep moisture out of this tiny space, and the soap dries too. In England, the bathroom I used most often didn't have any windows, so I would keep the soap bar in the bedroom.

We celebrated Christmas with my partner's family and his ex partner. It was a cosy evening, part of which I spent in a quiet, safe space that one of our family members (whose home we were in) prepared for me. I stayed there because I still feel dizzy often. So many different thoughts were running through my mind when I was there. The children received many gifts. I didn't watch them unwrap the gifts, but I came to the realisation that fellow humans buy those gifts not because they want to destroy nature or serve capitalism, but because they want children to be happy. They want to see kids experience joy as they open those presents. And yet, there are so many other ways to make children happy that don't involve consumption of stuff. I was thinking about my own childhood. I don't remember any of the gifts I received. I'm sure they were selected and bought with love, but in the end of the day, all of it was things that I probably didn't need, that I could live happily without. And even if destruction of nature is absolutely not the motive behind buying stuff, in so many cases those items are not good for nature. Are they even good for the children? 

On Boxing Day, we visited my beautiful stepmother-in-law and her husband, my partner's father. My stepmother-in-law was telling me about their Christmas tree and the decorations on it. She's had some of them since her childhood (she is in her 80s now). She was also telling me about the clothes she was wearing. Those items were more than 10 years old. 

We were talking about my practice of extreme minimalism. "You write, in your book, that this is a more sustainable mode of living. But I can't live this way. When we were young, we didn't have much. So I learned to keep things for a long time. I keep many of them just in case they become useful one day. If I need something, I don't want to run to my neighbours. They might not even be home!" says my father-in-law. It was humbling to hear his reflections. I told him what I usually tell my students when I reflect on extreme minimalism and sustainability. It's just one way to live differently. It's not the way. Some fellow humans prefer to live in eco-communities, others co-live, yet others want to be self-sufficient. There is a great diversity of alternative lifestyles. Extreme minimalism works for me, but it doesn't work for everyone. And if I need to borrow something, I would certainly try to borrow from my neighbours first. If not, then from my father-in-law! 

544

 Exiting the first trimester

We often feel constellations of emotions. Different, sometimes even conflicting, emotions at once. This pregnancy was planned and wanted, but in the first trimester it certainly didn't go as I planned, or rather, wanted it to unfold. It's been a humbling experience. I've felt immense gratitude and self-transcendence. I also hated so many moments of it. 

I found out that I was pregnant at week 4, and at week 5+3 (5 weeks and 3 days) I already had an appointment with a midwife at my GP's office to help me navigate this journey and the Danish healthcare system. For a week, my only symptoms were breathlessness, tiredness and feeling extremely warm at night. After my appointment, my health started to decline rapidly. I couldn't eat or drink anything. Nothing would stay in, even water. I couldn't sleep due to horrible pain associated with nausea, became dehydrated and started to faint. Every smell, every source of light became a trigger. Calling acute care and going into the emergency department was not very helpful. It took 1.5 hours to reach acute care by phone at night. They said that feeling this way in early pregnancy is normal. Only after a while they told me to go to the emergency department. At the emergency department they said there was nothing that they could do about my condition, and that I needed to come back the next day to visit the gynaecology department where experts would assess my condition and find suitable medication.

I ended up in the hospital's gynaecology department at 6+2 weeks. I was connected to an iv drip and given ondansetron (zofran). I was diagnosed with hyperemesis gravidarum (severe nausea and vomiting in pregnancy) and stayed at the hospital until I could walk again. Since that time, I've been taking zofran almost every day. While zofran prevented vomiting, it didn't stop nausea. I didn't have food cravings, only food and smell aversions. Until around week 11 I was sleeping most of the time. Every small task would take hours to complete. I struggled to walk up the stairs to the fifth floor (there is no lift in my building), struggled to wash my hair. I couldn't stand in the shower up until week 11. I would just sit on the floor. Whenever I had a meeting, I would take a double doze of zofran, and then sleep for many hours afterwards. 

Towards the end of the first trimester, I began to feel better. I was still taking zofran, but I began to have days without severe nausea. Just extreme tiredness. I began to eat and slowly regain the weight that I lost in the first weeks of pregnancy. I could walk again. I could finally use various recommendations for morning sickness, such as eat often and drink ginger tea. I felt that I finally experienced normal morning sickness (though for me it was in the afternoon and evening) after many weeks of living with hyperemesis gravidarum. 

I've been wanting to eat mainly fresh fruits and vegetables. I still struggle to drink plain tap water (which I normally love), so I drink fresh ginger infusion and I often eat soup made from local vegetables that I happen to have in my fridge (potatoes, carrots, onions, at times celery and even spinach). These days, I eat more imported fruits (oranges and satsumas) than I would have done at other times. As a sustainable living practitioner and researcher, sometimes I feel guilty for buying oranges and fresh ginger. Normally I would rather get local herbs and local apples and pears at this time of the year. But I'm also trying to be gentle towards myself. 

Going through the first trimester of pregnancy, in my case, coincided with a very dark time here in Denmark. There have been weeks without sunlight, and days have been getting shorter. More than any kind of food, I was craving sunlight. I felt better every time I could feel the sun on my skin. 

I remember telling my father-in-law, before I got pregnant, that I would not want to become a patient when I am pregnant. Yet, things unfolded very differently. I was at my GP's office, at a gynaecologist's office and at hospitals countless times. I lost count of how many times my blood was taken and other tests performed. I had three early scans to check if the baby was doing well despite me being very ill (they were!). 

I dream of being able to live without zofran and of having more energy. 

543

 Sentimental items I'm taking with me into 2025

How to approach sentimental items as a minimalist is such a personal matter. This entry is in no way meant to be a benchmark for my fellow humans. 

I have never been someone who needs to hold on to physical objects to be reminded of persons and moments. Some fellow humans think that it means I'm not a sentimental human being, and very often I thought that they might be right. After contemplating it further, I realised that there is such a great diversity of ways to be sentimental. For example, I treasure some pieces of advice that my mother (she died when I was 17), my grandmother and other family members gave me, and various things that I learned from them. For example, both my mother and grandmother nurtured, and invested in, female friendships. I always found it inspiring. My stepfather always emphasised the importance of the non-material and of investing one's time and energy into something you genuinely love (this liberated me from trying to get good grades at the university for its own sake). 

To me, minimalism and even extreme minimalism doesn't mean having no sentimental items at all. Over time, as I was figuring out my approach to sentimental items, I came to the realisation that I can simply keep items for a while, and that it doesn't have to be forever. I feel no such obligation. It would certainly feel like a burden. Some items I keep for days, others for weeks or months. Yet others even for several years.

Into 2025, I am taking three sentimental items with me:

(1) A printout from an early scan (10 weeks and 1 day). Usually they don't do such early scans here in Denmark, but I had three done because I was very ill. Seeing the baby's heartbeat was wonderful. I might not keep this printout forever (I can take a picture of it).

(2) A stone from Bornholm that I found on a beach. I had more stones but gave most of them back to Nature. I often take this stone with me when I go for a walk and pick it up when I feel stressed. Everyone who lives with sensory processing sensitivity has their own strategies of coping with this condition. For me, carrying a small stone in my pocket or a bag works well. 

(3) My engagement ring. I wear it very rarely. I don't wear (or own) jewellery apart from this ring. After my mother died, I was given some of her jewellery by my stepfather and grandmother, but I gave them away. I realised that those items reminded me of her death rather than life. 

542

Our simple and gentle wedding

My partner proposed to me on 14 February 2024. These months have not been an easy time for us as a couple, but after a lot of work on our relationship, we still decided to get married. We applied to The Danish Agency of Family Law for a permission to get married in September. Between February and September we had a lot of time to plan the wedding of our dreams. We decided to ask ourselves what we really wanted and de-prioritise societal expectations. What I describe below is certainly not meant to be some ideal of an extremely minimalist wedding. It's just one way to approach this event among so many diverse ways. We got married this way for ecological, spiritual and aesthetic reasons, and because it aligns well with our worldviews and the way we live and relate with the world. This approach, to us, felt gentle towards ourselves, fellow humans and non-humans, and nature.

We invited only 4 guests: my stepchild (my partner's child from a previous relationship) and my partner's mother, father and stepmother. Unfortunately my partner's stepmother could not attend for health reasons. His mother and father would also be our witnesses. If my fellow humans wonder why we didn't invite my family, this is because my mother died when I was 17, and my stepfather and brother live far away. 

We chose to get married in Copenhagen City Hall (we live in Copenhagen). The ceremony was simple but meaningful, heartfelt and intimate, with us standing in front of the fellow human conducting the ceremony and my stepchild between us holding our hands. 

After the ceremony, we decided to celebrate only with my stepchild. Because my partner's parents are separated, we felt that the best way to celebrate with them would be to do it separately on other days. 

Costs

The fee that the Danish Agency of Family Law charges to process and issue a certificate of marital status - DKK 1900

Extra fees to get married in Copenhagen City Hall on the date we have chosen - DKK 3800. This was the most expensive part of our wedding. 

One paper invitation card for my stepchild - approximately DKK 35

Other invitations (2 guests, they also serves as our witnesses) - free (sent via a text or made via a phone call)

Gift for my stepchild - DKK 199

Gift for my partner - DKK 500. I gave him a "gift bottle". Our local wine shop sells local Danish ciders that my partner loves. They came up with a wonderful gift card idea: they use an empty bottle and hand write the amount on it as well as a number so that they know it's authentic. One brings the bottle back to them and redeems it as a gift card! This gift combines everything that I want my gift to be: local, consumable, zero-waste, creative, with a personal touch. 

His gift for me (a bunch of Spanish grapes from a food market) - approximately DKK 90. These are very expensive and we generally try to avoid buying such expensive and imported fruits, but they were absolutely delicious. 

It was important to us that our family and friends who wanted to give us gifts would instead donate to humanitarian or environmental causes. My partner's mother gave us some wonderful, home-made crackers though. It was a lovely gift. 

Restaurant - DKK 800. I would have preferred to skip this part of the wedding and eat something at home, but we decided to eat at a restaurant because the ceremony was late in the evening and we had my stepchild with us. We also wanted to make it special for her (she doesn't go to restaurants very often). 

Flowers - none. Most of them are imported (in fact, all that I've seen). 

Wedding rings - none. We decided not to wear any. 

Wedding dress/clothes, shoes - none. In the picture above is my wedding outfit. It consists of what I already live with (sweatpants, a basic top, my one and only linen shirt). 

Bridesmaid's clothes - none. My stepchild was my bridesmaid and she wore what she already had. 

Makeup and hair - none. I don't wear makeup and don't style my hair in my everyday life. So I decided to simply be myself on my wedding day too. 

Honeymoon - none. I've been feeling unwell in the first trimester. We decided to go somewhere (it will definitely be local!) when I feel better. 

Cake - none. My partner baked a banana bread from the ingredients we already had at home. 

Total: approximately DKK 7324 (EUR 982)

541

 "Decluttering"

At times, my fellow humans ask me about decluttering. I feel that I understand well what is meant by this word and see much value in this concept (it probably indicates that a person is stepping on a path of relating with objects and consumption differently!), but personally I try to avoid using the word as much as possible in my everyday life and in my academic works. I avoid it because what we call clutter is embodied nature and human labour and time. I might not need these objects, but at some point they were raw materials from nature, someone designed them, someone assembled them, and someone sold their time to earn the money that bought the objects. And someone else might find these objects incredibly useful. 

I never went through a stage of decluttering where I got rid of a large number of possessions in a short-ish period of time. I saw an opportunity to live with less when I moved countries. I was in my late teens when I was planning to move. At that time, I didn't have as many possessions as, say, my stepfather or grandmother. None of the furniture or household items belonged to me personally, and many of the items could be used by my brother who was younger and would live at home for a few more years. I did say goodbye to some notes from school and uni. I didn't need them. I had more items of clothing than I have now, and my grandmother donated them and gave some away to her friends so their grandchildren could use them. I gave my bags and accessories and my mother's jewellery to my grandmother so she could use them. 

After that, I never lived with an excessive number of items. Yet, it still felt like it was too much for me. My approach to keeping some items and saying goodbye to others was sketching a playful "sufficiency list". I've mentioned it a lot in this autoethnography already and published it in this paper for the first time. I simply asked myself: what are the items that I genuinely need and that make my life good/cosy/comfortable? I also carefully observed what I took with me when I went somewhere for a while. It was surprisingly easy to sketch this list. The first few items that came to mind were my laptop, my phone, documents, a bank card, clothes, personal care items. I realised that I didn't need to keep most of the items that were not on the list. So I gave them away. Over the years, the list hasn't changed much at all. At different times it did reflect different needs though. For example, when I lived in Northern Sweden, I needed mittens and a hat. In England I could easily live without them. 

My sufficiency list is absolutely not a benchmark for anyone. But I do think it could be an interesting and fun exercise for those fellow humans who seek to relate with objects, space, time, consumption, etc. differently, to sketch their own. Everyone's list would look different. For example, my natural desire to create (that every human being has!) is channelled into my academic work and writing, so I need my laptop. Some fellow humans need, for example, art supplies and equipment, and that's ok. There is no perfect number of objects that one should keep. 

I didn't split my sufficiency list by room (e.g., kitchen, bedroom), because there are very few objects that I need to live a happy and cosy life. If there were more objects, I would probably think about kitchen equipment, bathrooms, living room, clothes etc. separately. In any case, I would begin with spending a lot of quality time with myself and a piece of paper sketching the list. 

Other fellow humans find other strategies more helpful. My ex partner "decluttered" room by room. Some prefer to spend time with actual objects and decide whether to keep them or not. Yet others have a dedicated space where they keep the items they might not want to keep, and either bring them back after a while or donate/sell them.

While I generally live only with what I need and enjoy, new items enter my home every now and then. Usually they are gifts from fellow humans. I used to donate them immediately, but these days I keep a box where I put them. When someone visits me, I ask them if there is anything they need. Many of my fellow humans who visit me are interested in sustainability, so they understand why I ask. This time, there were some very nice items in the box that could be regifted, and I didn't have any visits planned. I took the items to my local byttestation (swap shop) so someone can find them and hopefully regift, or keep them. 

540

"What can I do to make winter holidays more sustainable?"

At this time of the year, fellow humans approach us, sustainability researchers, to ask something along these lines: What can I do to to make winter holidays more sustainable? It's wonderful when fellow humans reach out. Most of the emails I personally receive are still from academics, but I am so happy to see that there are more and more messages from non-academics too. 

What makes me feel sorrow is the usual response to the question above offered by fellow researchers. I am seeing and hearing the same response: "the issue is systemic", often followed by a long lecture on how capitalism works. Obviously, the issue is systemic. I think that everyone, in and outside academia, understands it. Those who don't understand, usually reach out to ask for some more information about how capitalism, its various systems and structures work and how these systems and structures interact with (empower and constrain) human actions. They ask for articles, book recommendations and about free workshops and lectures that they can attend in person or online. 

Right now, people are overwhelmed. They/we feel stressed. In fact, we experience many conflicting emotions. We might be happy about spending time with our loved ones and at the same time feel scared (to overspend, to not buy the right thing, to give worse presents than someone else, to cause harm to nature via our consumption and so on). 

Lecturing fellow humans can wait. I hope that when a fellow human approaches us, sustainability academics, to ask what they can do, right now, in practical terms, it is most appropriate to share real tips. Please share real tips! There are thousands of small ways how we can make winter holidays greener. Of course not all of them will be equally useful for everyone. But every human being can find their own constellation of practices that will be useful to them and their unique circumstances. And many of these practices would apply to other holidays too. 

Systems do not change from without. They change from within: human beings (individually and collectively) reproduce and transform social structures. 

Here are some tips for a more sustainable Christmas (or any other holiday):

• Give time and skills. In my previous entry, I shared an example of a wonderful woman in her 80s who bakes traditional Danish Christmas cookies with her grandchildren. It can also be a workshop.
• Give experiences. I bought tickets to take my partner and his child to a Botanical Garden.
• Give craft supplies to children (instead of plastic toys) and make something together with them.
• Give homemade gifts (cookies, jams, lip balms, knitted items etc.)
• Give family heirlooms instead of new items
• Give second-hand items instead of new ones
• Keep a box at home where you can put unwanted gifts. You can donate them. I ask my guests to see if there is anything they want or need. 
• Regift unwanted gifts 
• If a child is interested in nature and is old enough, give them a plant that is easy to care for (you don't have to buy it, you can grow it yourself in advance) instead of a plastic toy. Or give them a stone, or a shell that they can keep forever. 
• Give zero-waste gifts (e.g., a bar of soap - I've noticed that generally fellow humans like to receive them as gifts)
• Donate to humanitarian and environmental causes on behalf of those who do not want gifts 
• I don't think that money is a bad gift. You can give a gift card too, preferably to a place where a person shops. I personally avoid supporting large businesses though.  
• Make your own winter holiday cards 
• Give locally made products 
• Give food (e.g., locally made jam, honey, apple wine, blueberry wine, unusual fruits and vegetables). I gave myself a pinecone as a gift (in the picture above). When my stepchild visited me, she asked me about it. I told her it's a magic pinecone that can open if she kindly asks it to open, and reveal pine nuts. She was so fascinated by it. We put in the oven (it took 2 or so hours at 100 degrees C) and it opened. We took the pine nuts out and ate them together. 
• Make your winter holiday gifts in advance, in summer and early autumn (e.g., homemade jams are such a wonderful gift). You can forage or grow herbs, dry them and give them as gifts. 
• Feel free to ask if the person genuinely needs or wants something
• If you buy something more conventional, look for certified products, consider the products' sustainability credentials
• Use fabric scraps for gift wrapping. I also keep ribbons, jute thread, old gift wrapping paper and boxes to wrap gifts, or use cotton pouches. 
• Make your own Christmas décor
• Give supplies to those who have gardens and are interested in growing their own food or flowers 
• Wear what you already have for Christmas parties. Or buy second-hand. Or borrow from fellow humans.
• Offer to cook something and bring food if you are attending a Christmas party
• Avoid shops as much as possible, go for a walk elsewhere
• Make vegan and vegetarian dishes
• Give knowledge: share your sustainability tips with fellow humans 

539

 Brunkager (Danish Christmas cookies)

I visited my partner's stepmother again. She is an inspiring, wise and incredibly beautiful woman in her 80s. I learn so much about slow, simple and sustainable living from her. When it comes to learning about sustainability in everyday life, for me, she is a greater source of inspiration and knowledge than academic articles and books. Usually, we talk about life and our life experiences, politics, Women, what unites humans, and ways to enact sustainability. 

Every year, she invites her grandchildren to bake brunkager (Danish Christmas cookies) with her. Is it not a wonderful gift? She mentioned that over the years she observes more and more plastic toys being introduced into children's lives. Every week, her small gift to her youngest son was to pick him up early from a kindergarten and go to Copenhagen with him, to visit anything he wanted to visit (such as a library or a museum). They would have a tiny ritual, getting soda water and a cookie together. It was so until he asked her to do the same ritual at home because he thought that going out was too expensive (it's such a heart-warming story which also makes me think about financial literacy from a young age). 

She wants to give these gifts to her grandchildren: teaching them a skill (such as how to bake and handle ingredients), spending quality time with family members, eating together. We talked about the fast pace of modern life and that many fellow humans cannot find the time to eat together with their loved ones. Isn't it better to stay late in the office and eat dinner at one's desk in a hope that this (often unpaid) overtime will eventually result in a higher wage that one can later spend on stuff? Isn't it better to go out with colleagues in a hope to network effectively? In my department at my previous university they would often have late evening events with wine and snacks. It is so interesting that some fellow humans chose networking, while others chose their home, families, or indeed themselves, or a walk in nature. 

My dream woman gave a jar with some brunkager to me as a small gift. The jar was originally home to some local honey from a Danish island and belonged to her friend. The friend gave her homemade cookies as a gift in this jar, and now the jar is in my possession. 

She asked me if I wanted her to knit some clothes or blankets for my yet unborn child. Over the years, she has knitted many items for her grandchildren, her household and for her husband. These days, she has pain in her hands and cannot knit much, but she said that if she knits little by little, she could have something ready for when the baby is born. 

538

 The journey to where I am now (extreme minimalism)

Recently, a fellow human asked me this question: May I ask how long you've been an extreme minimalist? Perhaps upon the first reading the question invites me to simply share the number of years. But upon another reading I realise that the question is so humbling and deep. It encouraged me to write an entry about my journey. I've shared many parts of my journey in this autoethnography before, but the question reminded me how important it is to reemphasise the messy nature of my path. I often have this fear that my fellow humans who read my autoethnography assume that something happened in my life and I became an extreme minimalist with an ideal consumption pattern. That I figured it all out very quickly. That it was an easy path. It wasn't. 

Childhood. I was born into a normal, middle class family. When my brother and I were very young, our family moved to a rural area due to my stepfather's job. We lived very close to nature without much exposure to advertising and shops. We would still get normal toys (such as Lego and Barbie dolls) as gifts, but we were much more interested in being with nature, exploring the local environment, playing with our cat and the dog. In the rural area, we learned a lot about what we could eat in nature and about the animals living there. We would visit fields, forests and rivers instead of theatres and museums (though there would be plenty of those when we came back to the city). While our parents consumed normally (they had a car, would buy the latest technology, my mother would wear makeup, high heels and special occasion clothing), I've never felt attracted to stuff. I've always lived with sensory processing sensitivity, which meant that I found stuff overwhelming. I also live with an autoimmune skin condition, which encouraged me, since my childhood, to be careful with various fabrics and common household products (e.g., cleaning products, cosmetics, perfumes). 

In my childhood, I didn't have any particular philosophy of life. I was trying to figure out how to live and was learning about my preferences. One of my childhood memories is our parents asking my brother and I to help them clean a crystal chandelier. I could never understand why we had to do that instead of doing something else, something more pleasant. 

Teens. My family returned to a large city when I was a teenager. The city felt incredibly busy, loud and overwhelming. The parks could not compare to nature in the rural area. They were so polished and planned. My health was in a very bad state, as my autoimmune condition was manifesting incredibly often. The apartment where we used to live was much smaller than the house in the rural area. It felt as if we were being suffocated by stuff. I certainly did not want more than the amount of things that found their way into my life via my parents and other relatives. 

In my teens, I was not thinking much about developing a philosophy of life either. There was simply no time for deep contemplations. There were too many expectations from my family to do well at school and to do extracurricular activities. There were no fellow humans that I knew who practised an alternative lifestyle either. I feel that many of those years were lost. I didn't know who I was beyond someone who had to get good grades at school. In summers, I would spend much time in my stepfather's summer house. There, I would forage and read. Those were wonderful moments. Then, my mother died in a car crash. I was 17. My relationship with my mother was not particularly good at that time, as much of the pressure to do well at school came from her rather than my stepfather. As bad as it may sound, and as much as I felt incredibly sad about her death (she was in her early 40s), I felt liberated. I could choose my own path in life (apart from the university, as by then I was already a student). In the years after my mother's death, I finally had an opportunity to connect with myself. I gave away many of my possessions. I also realised that I could not build my own future in the space that I associated with pressure to perform. I travelled a lot around that time (I used to fly, and I'm not proud of that). And I made some decisions about my life. I decided to never own a car or wear uncomfortable clothes. I decided to never go to theatres, museums and various parties just to say that I have been there, to seem busy. 

2010. I moved to another country when I was around 20. This move gave me an opportunity to take with me only what I truly needed. I moved with a tote bag. At that time, I was not calling myself an extreme minimalist, but on an intuitive level I knew what I wanted: freedom. 

Living far away from my family of origin meant that I could be myself, whatever it meant. I got interested in veganism and various alternative modes of relating with the world and diverse beings. The following few years, I was trying to figure things out. I experimented with various kinds of uniform. I stopped wearing makeup completely. I volunteered. I slept on the floor. I shaved my head to challenge various ideas about femininity and to live an easier life.

I certainly didn't drop all the destructive habits overnight. For example, I still decided to do my masters degree in International Business and Finance, which is a rather mainstream subject to study. During my masters studies, I realised that there are different schools of economics (the subject that I studied at uni). Eventually this led me to ecological economics, as this was the school of thought that allowed me to bring together my love towards nature and my interest in the social sciences. 

At that time, the zero-waste movement was on the rise, and I got interested in that too. 

2016-2020. In 2016, I started working on my PhD about post-growth and business, based in ecological economics and the philosophy of science called critical realism. Critical realism invites us to consider the unity between theory and practice. I fell in love with critical realism, and especially with its moment called the philosophy of MetaReality. This philosophy emphasises oneness or interconnectedness of everything with everything else. It argues that humans are inherently good and capable of love, creativity, freedom, and right actions. This philosophy allowed me to put words to many of the things I was feeling. Being in the field of sustainability exposed me to a vocabulary that I did not know before. Voluntary simplicity, post-growth, living well with less. I was reading a lot during those years. Taoism, American environmentalism, deep ecology, literature on voluntary simplicity and post-growth, economic anthropology and so many other things. 

2020-present moment. By the end on 2020, I was already practising a constellation of zero-waste, (extreme) minimalism, and voluntary simplicity. I could never, and still can't, find the exact, perfect term to describe my mode of living. After my PhD, I got another opportunity to move. This time, I moved to northern Sweden. With me, I took everything I owned. Everything fit into a tote bag and a backpack. And then I moved a couple more times. In the past few years, my practice has been more or less continuous in terms of the objects I live with. There were challenges too. In every new country, I had to establish many of my practices from scratch and learn about particular systems and structures that empower and constrain sustainability practices. At times, I feared to invite something into my life simply because I knew I would be moving again (because academic contracts are often temporary). 

I don't plan to ever discontinue my practice. It feels liberating, authentic, calming, nurturing. Naturally, my practice will change over time, but I believe that its core will remain. The core, to me, is the realisation that it's the non-material that matters the most. 

537

 Extremely minimalist first trimester wardrobe

My wardrobe consists of 10 or so items (not including underwear and socks): 2 pairs of sweatpants, 2 pairs of shorts, 1 linen shirt, 1 jacket, 1 large woollen scarf, and 3 basic tops. These basic tops are very thin and air dry overnight (otherwise I would have had a few more). 

Since I became pregnant, I have been curious about changes in my consumption. There are so many products being sold to pregnant persons! In the first trimester, I lost weight due to hyperemesis gravidarum, but by the end of the first trimester which I am now approaching, I noticed that one of my pairs of shorts didn't fit me well anymore. I put it away and borrowed a pair of "men's" shorts in a larger size. It's rather cold in Denmark in winter, but I continue to wear shorts at home. As my body is changing, I am planning to borrow clothes in a larger size rather than buy new ones. I'm doing it for ecological reasons, but also because I want to feel good in everything I wear. Borrowing clothes from my fellow humans feels meaningful and I can borrow the items from those fellow humans who share my preference for neutral colours and natural materials.

At times, my fellow humans ask me if it's not wasteful to have so few clothing items, as I would need to wash them often (thus use more electricity). I don't wash my clothes separately. I wash them with our bedding, towels, and my partner's light clothes, at a low temperature and with a laundry sheet. When there is a stain, I don't put the item in the washing machine. I wash it immediately by hand. 

536

 Lived nuances and challenges of a voluntarily simple life

Oftentimes, when my fellow humans visit my home, which is one of the spaces where I practise an alternative mode of living (that combines different elements of voluntary simplicity/simple living, slow living, extreme minimalism, zero-waste), they say something like this: Your home looks/feels so peaceful! It must be so easy to clean this space! It's so idyllic! It looks like a yoga studio. 

It feels so important to highlight all the wonderful, beautiful, nurturing, and otherwise wellbeing-promoting aspects of living this way. These aspects can be so easily lost in discourses advocating less (e.g., less production and consumption). Just as we need to produce and consume less, we also need more. More of entirely different things. This lifestyle gives me more free time, more peacefulness, more lightness and ease. 

And yet, there is another side of this mode of living. I tried to capture many of the nuances and challenges I have experienced on my path in this article. It came out very recently. In this article, I discuss things such as instability/temporary employment, having one's time in a country/residence permit tied to one's work contract, health (mental and physical). 

While in the past 15 years I've practised this lifestyle for good reasons, such as ecological, spiritual and aesthetic, I have also noticed that my practice, at least partly, is connected to (if not rooted in) fear. It is difficult to feel rooted and create a home, and feel at home, when one's contract is temporary (a standard postdoc contract is 2 years). At times, my fellow humans ask, why don't you live in an eco-community? Why don't you grow your own food? There are several reasons, one of them being temporary residence permits. I would love to grow my own food, but it takes time to establish a garden. In every new country, I had to adjust my sustainability practices and learn about empowering and constraining social systems. Learning takes time. Facing health crises made me change some of my practices temporarily. And so on. If you want to read the article and do not have free access, please email me for a free copy.  

535

 Holiday gifts

In the past 15 years or so, since I stepped on the path of living a minimalist and more sustainable life, I've been giving gifts to my fellow humans that are in line, as much as possible, with my values. 

My closest family members (stepfather, brother and grandmother) and I do not give gifts to each other anymore. We live in different countries, and receiving a text or a call from my loved ones is a wonderful gift in itself. My previous partner and I would always ask each other what we genuinely needed. We still have some of those items and use them very often. 

My current partner and I don't give each other gifts for major holidays, but we do give gifts to one another if there is something that we find by chance (and feel that the other person might like it). For example, we have given each other stones that we found on Danish beaches. Whenever I visit Sweden, I try to bring back to Denmark some kardemummabullar that he loves. Gifts that we give to each other don't have to cost anything or be expensive. 

With other family members we have an agreement that they donate some money to humanitarian and environmental causes instead of giving gifts to us. We feel that we have enough, even though we live with very few items. 

Some of the most wonderful gifts I have received were fruits and vegetables from fellow humans' gardens, home-made bread and cakes, and small items that have lived in families for generations. 

When it comes to giving gifts to other fellow humans, I prefer to give either zero-waste gifts or preferably locally produced food (or locally produced drinks). In every place where I've lived, there was a store (either a health food shop, a shop specialising in local products, or even a food market) where local food can be found.

This holiday season I will be giving honey, jams and teas. For my stepchild, my partner and I got some craft materials that she can use to make sculptures and flowers, on her own or with us. I also bought some tickets for all of us to visit The Palm House (part of the Botanical Garden here in Copenhagen). As for giving zero-waste gifts, I think some items are better than others. For example, I would not give bamboo utensils to a fellow human who doesn't travel much or a set with a bamboo toothbrush to someone who uses electric toothbrushes only. Over the years, I've noticed that the most popular zero-waste gifts that I have given (and that fellow humans genuinely loved and used) were bars of soap, food storage containers and reusable shopping bags. Those are the items I use myself every day. 

For wrapping gifts, I've used paper bags that came with other items, pieces of fabric, cotton pouches (I asked my fellow humans to regift them, use them at home or give them back to me). I've also used jute twine and ribbons that found their way into my life. At times, I didn't wrap gifts at all, especially when they were gifts for adults. 

Other lovely ideas that my fellow humans enact are regifting the items they do not need, giving hand-made items (such as knitted scarves, mittens and hats), giving second-hand items and experiences. I usually donate the gifts that I do not need straight away, but in the past few months I have decided to keep a small box with those items at home. I ask my fellow humans who visit me if they need any of those items. This way, those items find a new loving home very quickly.  

534

Transparency 

I have made some entries (528, 531 and 532) private, as the person mentioned in them can be identified. They do not consent to being mentioned in my autoethnographic work. 

533

Everyday activism 

I was so lucky to spend this evening with a fellow human from the organisation called Degrowth Copenhagen. The fellow human brought a generous and delicious gift for me, a vegan chocolate cake. Food is one of my most favourite gifts. This Christmas, I will be giving food as gifts to my loved ones. 

I wish every fellow human who reads my autoethnography could join our conversation. 

The fellow human who visited me was wondering about my practice. We, sustainability researchers, often say that genuine sustainability entails less consumption, learning to live a good life with less. I've always been curious about how this actually feels and what it means in our everyday life. I've been practising an alternative way of living, constellating various elements of minimalism, zero-waste, simple, slow and frugal living since approximately 2010. This is 6 years prior to me starting writing my PhD about degrowth. In my PhD, I focused on production. The question I asked myself was, what should business be like for a genuinely sustainable society to be possible? The question of consumption was on my mind too, because both production and consumption need to change, and they are deeply interrelated. 

I've never thought that the way I live should be the way for everyone to live. There are so many ways to live more sustainably! I also don't think that this is the only way to be an activist. There is such a great diversity of activisms. Having said that, everyday activism has always felt engaged, humble, loving, caring, gentle, and relatable to me. It aligns well with how I want to be in the world and what I think is most effective. I want to live well and show that a different mode of living is possible, without forcing anyone to live like I do. 

My reasons for this practice are ecological, spiritual, aesthetic, health and finance related. My practice is centered around four domains (they come from critical realism, which is a philosophy of science perspective): the material, social relations, social structures and the inner world. It is not so that I've always thought about these four domains. That came later on my journey, when I started writing about my practices more formally. It is so that my practices organically fell into those categories over time. In the beginning, I focused a lot more on the material practices (does anyone remember the trash jar?). Then I realised that living more sustainably is collective. Many of my practices entail borrowing, learning from fellow humans, sharing, gifting and receiving. Sustainable living is also about social systems. Some of them empower, and others constrain us on our sustainability paths. The longer I am on this path, the more clearly I see how the inner world facilitates my practice. 

With the fellow human who visited me, we talked about theory-practice consistency, sharing knowledge, living according to our values, struggles when trying to live differently, privileges, multiple forms of activism, and how education for sustainability needs to start early in life. 

Theory-practice consistency: I do not think that anyone would (or should) take me seriously if I write academic papers and teach about sustainability while living a luxurious life. 

Sharing knowledge: It was humbling to contemplate who we share knowledge with. Through my autoethnography, I try to connect with fellow humans from all walks of life. But how effective are we more generally, as academics? There are often free talks given by researchers. Yet, they take place at inconvenient times, or the language used excludes many humans. Or, the knowledge shared is interesting but cannot be used immediately by a human being (it might be unclear how exactly this knowledge can and should be used).

Living according to our values: It's not always easy. At times, there is judgement. 

Struggles when trying to live differently: For example, in academia, mobility credentials count. But what if one wants to avoid travelling, especially by plane? What if one wants to focus on their local area? 

Privileges: We talked about travelling by train vs flying. Now suffering from hyperemesis gravidarum, I would struggle to travel all the way to northern England by train. At times, trains are late and one has only a few seconds to catch the next one. What if one lives with a disability or a health condition that prevents them from reacting fast? I suffer from severe motion sickness. I remember sitting on the ground in a train station in Paris thinking that I would not be able to catch my next train. I felt incredibly unwell. Moreover, trains are very expensive, and train journeys stressful and time-consuming. 

Multiple forms of activism: I often feel that everyday activism is marginalised. As if only taking part in protests counts. But everyday activism may be the most suitable form of activism for neurodiverse humans. 

Education for sustainability: I don't think that one lecture on sustainability at a university can change one's mind and help a person develop a sophisticated philosophy of life. I dream about writing a book about sustainability and bringing up a child.