264

Shopping

In a genuinely sustainable society, we will still be consuming. Inviting new objects into our life does not necessarily have to happen through buying. It can be via receiving gifts, getting objects for free (e.g., from swap shops), foraging, borrowing and so on. Shopping has become an unwelcome word in sustainability communities. I oppose shopping as a hobby, buying fast anything (e.g., fashion, furniture). I very much dislike shopping myself. But I engage in this activity too, like many of my fellow humans. I just try to approach it differently. Practising minimalism and voluntary simplicity means that there are not so many categories of products that I consume. What mainly comes to mind, apart from basic needs (rent, water, electricity, public transport, food, medicine) are basic household products, personal care, clothing, cafes, technology. And then I try to simplify my consumption in each of these categories. For household cleaning, I use ingredients such as vinegar and baking soda. I only use a few personal care items, and most of them are zero-waste products made by small, local companies or even by myself. I buy clothes very rarely, embrace imperfections such as small stains and holes, repair when I can. I wear a very limited number of colours and wear the same things every day. My loved one and I go to cafes or eat out only very occasionally, and when we do, we prefer to support local, small businesses. As for technology, I use very few items, and all of them are very old. 

263

 Simplicity 

In my previous note I mentioned that new objects came into my life because my loved one's child began to spend more time with us. It's a somewhat challenging situation for me to navigate. My preferred mode of living is extreme minimalism. I used to live without furniture, slept on a yoga mat, invited very few objects into my space. I did it partly for ecological reasons, but also for aesthetic and spiritual reasons. Practising extreme minimalism is my way of living with "lagom" amount of things. I felt happy, calm, and even euphoric. Moving in with my fellow human meant adopting minimalism rather than extreme minimalism. Gradually, over the months, we invited more objects into our space. 

I can still practise my own consumption the way I choose. There are some principles that I live by. They include, for example, sufficiency, supporting local businesses, natural materials, durability. One of the most important principles is simplicity. I feel that in this autoethnography I mention simplicity very often. Perhaps it's a somewhat obscure word to use for consumption, as in my case it refers to everything from focusing on smaller number of things and goals in my life to ingredients in my personal care and colours of my clothing, to design of the objects I live with, to the food I choose.