404

 Wardrobe and everything else

I've lived with a very small amount of clothes for many years. My reasons for this, as well as for my practise of extreme minimalism and zero-waste, are ecological, aesthetic, and spiritual. There are also financial and health-related reasons. These days, I live with approximately 10 items of clothing, and I wear the same outfit every day. In the picture above is everything I own (including the laundry bag). It's not only all the clothes I own, but actually everything apart from the backpack with my laptop, water bottle and a few other items in it. In the bag below the clothes rack (tøjstativ in Danish) are my winter clothes (2 pairs of sweatpants, a thin jacket, a large woollen scarf), underwear, documents and some other small things such as cotton bags and medicines. 

My dream is to live in a way whereby everything I live with fits in one large bag. Perhaps the bag in the picture above would suffice, but in reality it is rather small. It's supposed to be a yoga or a beach bag. I've lived this dream more or less for the past 3 years, and with a small number of objects for the past 15 years. In the past 3 years, I've moved from England to northern Sweden, from northern Sweden to southern Finland, from southern Finland to Denmark. Every time I moved, I did so with only one tote bag and a backpack. In Finland, I lived completely without furniture. In Denmark, I began to live with a fellow human, so we invited some furniture into our life. Even though I use it, I don't consider it to be mine. I would happily live without it, and if I move again, I would not take any of this furniture or acquire new pieces. 

I will be moving soon, and perhaps it will be a good opportunity to photograph absolutely everything. 

I think that fellow humans have rather negative associations with living out of a suitcase. It probably is associated with instability, insecurity, being on a move. And while one might say that this is exactly how I've lived, I feel that what I've lived with is lagom (just right in Swedish) for me. Some things that make me feel at home is being in a space where some Germanic language is spoken, being able to make tea, having a few familiar objects, having high-quality things that I know will last and that I don't need to replace often. The other day, I was watching a beautiful sunset. The sun rises and sets, and it makes me feel safe and grounded in this world. 

Life is often compared to a journey. Living this life as a human being is part of an odyssey (it makes me think of Bhaskar's From East to West: Odyssey of a Soul, a book I like a lot). It makes sense to live with very few items. 

403

 Re-reading Walden

I went to my local cemetery, Solbjerg Parkkirkegård, to listen to the sound of leaves and to read. It can be difficult to find calm spaces in a busy city. My window faces a large and noisy road. As I was walking through the cemetery, I fell in love with the sounds. There are many birds, squirrels, insects. Fellow humans walk or run quietly. The atmosphere is majestic, unlike in the other nearby parks, Søndermarken and Frederiksberg Have. 

I'm re-reading Walden, perhaps my most favourite book. No other book connected as deeply with my soul. In many ways, my own worldview aligns with Thoreau's. I like the emphasis on the individual and one's relationship with the world. It feels liberating. Like other fellow humans, I experience social structures. Academic institutions, migration laws and so on. But within those social structures (and not all of them are constraining), I feel that I have freedom to act. 

One of the most important realisations on my journey has been that capitalism doesn't want anything. Capitalism is not a person, it doesn't have a mind and opinions. It is not upset with me for consuming much less than what is the norm in our society. I can live freely with 50 or so personal possessions, and that's ok. Most fellow humans who dwell in Copenhagen do not notice that I wear the same outfit every day. In academia, I have faced very few comments about this practice. 

In my autoethnographic work I am always careful to say that my mode of living is not the mode of living fellow humans should adopt. There are different ways to practise sustainability. Growing my own food would certainly improve my relationship with nature. Living in an eco-community would too. Yet, if a fellow human is interested to try extreme minimalism, nothing should prevent them from doing just that. Many barriers to practising extreme minimalism seem psychological. 15 or so years ago, I was still wondering: am I preventing myself from expressing myself through clothing and makeup? Do I feel that I don't deserve to have objects? I could address such questions through genuine self-love and self-care, not through objects and services, but through realising that I am enough. Some objects make my life comfortable but I certainly don't need to reinvent myself. And consuming much less means I could also work less, thus have time to grow outside work.