563

Staying on the path of minimalism & sustainable living

At times, my fellow humans ask me what keeps me on the path of minimalism and sustainable living. I've been on this path since 2010 and don't ever plan to step away from it because it feels so good, so right, and liberating. 

When my partner and I were talking about our motivations, what prompted each of us to begin our sustainability journeys, we discovered that our motivations were very different. He stepped on his path because he started reading literatures, books and reports, that describe ecological degradation. I stepped on my path to heal, to return to the way I felt in my childhood, much of which I spent in a rural area. I felt oneness with nature. I felt that I needed so little to live a good life. I talked to non-human beings. In 2010, I was in my early 20s. This motivation to heal and be whole again intertwined with my interest in plant-based food, voluntary simplicity, and then, much later, with my academic interest in ecological economics and post-growth. I started working on my PhD on degrowth only in 2016, several years after I began living more sustainably. Reading books and reports reinforced my desire to live sustainably and research sustainability further. But they were not the origin of my motivation. The books that influenced my practice the most were not books in ecological economics either. Rather, they were the ones in philosophy, and especially philosophy that celebrates human goodness and our interconnectedness with one another and nature (for example, I am inspired by Roy Bhaskar's writings on MetaReality). I have never read books specifically on minimalism and zero-waste. 

I often say that my reasons to live the way I do are ecological, spiritual, aesthetic, health-related, and financial. The spiritual dimension, for me, is not less important than the ecological one. 

I began my journey not with decluttering my space, but rather with moving countries. When I moved, I took only what I needed with me. And then I wanted to dive more deeply into the nature of what I thought I needed and the reasons why. I sketched what I call a "sufficiency list". I simply asked myself: what do I genuinely need to live a good and cosy life? Above is a screenshot of my sufficiency list from 2022. This is by no means a benchmark for any fellow human. I believe that everyone's sufficiency list would look very different. I didn't have any particular number of objects in my mind. I told myself the list could be as long as I wanted it to be. If it had to be hundreds of items, that was ok. If it had to be 10 items, that's was also ok. To me, that was and still is perhaps the most powerful exercise in life's philosophy, self-care and self-love. My sufficiency list hasn't changed much over the years. Every now and then, I share it in this autoethnography, but it looks almost exactly the same every time. 

When my fellow humans ask me which books they should read and what videos they should watch to feel empowered in their practice, I recommend, for example, Walden by Thoreau and Voluntary Simplicity By Elgin. But above all, I recommend inner work. Inner dialogues, self compassion, self-care and self-love. Spending quality time with oneself to get to know oneself, one's values and motivations better. Writing personal notes has been very helpful to me. Between 2010 and 2021, my notes very fragmented. I wrote them in notebooks which I never kept. In 2021, my life changed a lot. I moved from to northern Sweden. I began to live on my own and had plenty of time, especially in the cold, long and dark winter, to dive even deeper into my relationship with myself, objects, time, and space. 

Because everyone is a unique individual, everyone's path is unique. Everyone's constellation of sustainability practices will be unique too. For this reason, I don't usually watch videos or read advice such as what others should do, what they should keep, and what they should say goodbye to/declutter. I do my best to frame my writing as my personal story and talk about my experience. Fellow humans can then see if any of it applies to them or if they would approach their practices differently, which is absolutely ok too, as long as it results in wellbeing of the self, human and non-human others, and nature. 

I do not strive to be, or see myself as, a leader of any kind. Hierarchies such as the leader-the led, teacher-student, creator-follower/subscriber feel alien to me. Everyone is both a teacher and a student. 

If a fellow human feels so inclined, I say "try it!" when it comes to the sufficiency list and writing your own notes. To analyse my autoethnographic writings, I use the four planes of being framework. It comes from the philosophy of science perspective called critical realism. This framework proposes that everything that exists and unfolds in social reality, does so on the four planes of being: (1) material transactions with nature, (2) social relations, (3) social structures, (4) inner being. I like this framework because it's holistic. Inspired by this framework, I try to be mindful of my practice in terms of all these four domains. 

Recently, I was deleting some files from my phone. I try to keep almost nothing in my phone, so every now and then I look into it and delete unnecessary files such as pictures and notes. I discovered my notes from early 2022. I will share them, just as they are, below [this autoethnography that you are reading right now starts in March 2022]. These notes were accompanied by long walks and many inner dialogues and contemplations. Then I decided to write down most of my contemplations, and this is why the autoethnography that you are reading right now looks the way it does. 

31.12.21

Soap bar for face & body

Vaseline

Solid shampoo

Simple soap bar for washing dishes

Wooden dish brush

Cotton bag for shopping

Don't shop online

Wash kitchen cloths regularly to keep them clean

Delete unnecessary emails

Minimise e-waste

Tea 

04.01.22

My autoethnography makes me feel in tune with my body.

Tried tea with oat milk, it's really good.

05.01.22

I want to focus on nurturing and mutually kind and harmonious connections.

07.01.22

Now I only have a salve, vaseline, soap and shampoo bar. Hope to find a more natural toothpaste and finish the foamy washing up liquid in plastic. So good to have almost nothing.

13.01.22

I feel it is easier for me to say no to people.

04.02.22

For several days I was just using water and vaseline.

14.03.22

Recently I got some argan oil and I like it so far. I also recently bought Aleppo soap. It's amazing. I love the texture, the colour and the fact that it is unscented. It is also cheaper than other soaps. I use it for my body, face, dish washing, and cleaning. It works well for everything. Today I bought a new natural toothpaste and a toothbrush made from recycled plastic and bio bristles. The packaging is cardboard instead of plastic. Recently I borrowed a few things from the department: a spoon, a bowl, a mug, three glasses.

03.04.22

I have booked myself in to get my hair shaved. For ages I wasn't fully comfortable with short hair. Now I'm looking forward to it. I also took the dish washing liquid to work, it is pretty popular there. Also, I have been using my Aleppo soap which I love. It works well for washing dishes, doesn't foam up too much which I appreciate. I still use argan oil. When I only use water to wash my body and face with, I actually don't need to moisturise afterwards.

Saying no to people: This is a big step forward for me. On Saturday a [fellow human] invited me and someone else to their place. I initially said yes but then I felt so bad about it. I felt that I had to go but then realised that it really is up to me to choose and decide. I didn't go. It felt liberating.

08.04.22

Yesterday I went to the hairdresser who shaved my hair! It feels amazing. It doesn't suit me at all, but there is something about it that makes me feel very happy. I feel like I did it for myself only. Now my hair will be regrowing. I am curious how it will feel and what it will look like.

My skin is so much better since I quit skincare. These 2 days when I was in the shower, I was thinking how clean I feel when I only use water and occasionally soap.

When I go to Lund the week after next, it will be my first time travelling without shampoo.

28.06.22

I got another Aleppo soap for the dishes. And another soap from some Swedish natural brand. This soap contains clay and is unscented. Recently I was thinking of moving again and that made me think of downsizing again. Soon I will go abroad and will bring only the bare essentials with me. In Lund I didn't need more, and with me I took only a very tiny number of things.

562

Everything I invited into my life in January

I don't usually refer to my practice as low or no buy. I've written about it in this entry. After many years of practising minimalism, what I invite into my life feels just right, even if it looks like a very small amount to my fellow humans. My practice is not a temporary measure. It is not an experiment. It's just a way of being and relating with the world, including with objects. I don't feel deprived at all. I feel free. 

I decided to not simply write about my practice in general or fragmented terms, but to show how exactly it unfolds. Every month, I will share what I invite into my life. It will not be accompanied by what leaves my life because I don't have a rule akin to one in-one out and I'm not scanning my home for unnecessary items. I let many items go once, many years ago, and since then I've been giving items away more occasionally, whenever it felt right. By once I don't mean one day, rather a period of time.

I will also not focus on normal outgoings that we have, including rent, bills, food, public transport and medicine, unless there is something unusual. 

In January, our biggest unusual expense was the fee we paid to Danish authorities to be able to reunite as a family. It was DKK 8710 or around EUR 1200. Apart from that, I bought a toothbrush for myself. My partner and stepchild already had new ones. I also bought a balm and a shampoo that all of us can use. 

In the end of 2024, we decided to avoid going out in 2025. But we went to our local cafes twice in January to have coffee, and it was wonderful. It felt special, especially because I drink coffee only occasionally in pregnancy.

I'm almost 18 weeks pregnant, and I haven't bought (or otherwise acquired) anything for the baby or myself in relation to pregnancy. 

I received a tiny notebook as a gift from my partner and a bracelet from my stepchild. She made it in her kindergarten. 

I don't have a wish list or any other consumption related list for my future purchases. But next month, I will probably invite laundry sheets into my life again, as I'm running out of the ones I have, and a new dish brush. 

In January, I have been writing a lot, contemplating, feeling excited about walking towards Spring and about all the changes in my body. I've been walking again after feeling unwell in the first trimester. None of the activities that filled my heart with immense joy cost money.

As always, none of the above is how fellow humans should live. Every human being is unique. This is simply my story. 

561

Transparency: tiny changes in my autoethnography, and future plans

In the past few days, my fellow humans reached out to me to ask why I deleted our channel in a popular video sharing platform and whether we will be sharing again. I am very grateful for all the love, care, support and encouragement. I deeply felt all of these in the wonderful, heartfelt messages that I have received. We deleted the channel for personal reasons. We are working through our personal issues and hope that in the future we will create together again. I could record videos by myself, but I believe that together my partner and I can bring the best of both worlds to our fellow humans, including my deep interest in individual (and collective) sustainability practices and humans' inner worlds, and his deep interest in systems, structures and policies. His expertise is very useful because so often fellow humans blame themselves for practising un-sustainability, while there are so many mechanisms at work that nudge, and at times even coerce and force, humans to (over)consume. It is certainly not so that my partner cannot discuss sustainability and inner practices in depth, and I have a lack of understanding of social systems. As researchers, we understand and contemplate all of these domains very often. Every day. Especially because they are intertwined. I think it's more about our personal interests and who we are as human beings. I have always gravitated towards the individual level and human agency (i.e., our capacity to act). And when it comes to what I create, I want it to come directly from my heart, in the most authentic way. 

To share beyond academic audiences is one of our new year's resolutions. While I will keep sharing via my autoethnography, I have also decided to share very tiny videos on Instagram. One idea I have is to share what I invite into my life every month and why, as a human being practising extreme minimalism. This is to go beyond describing my practice, to dive into it exactly as it unfolds. I can try to answer my fellow humans' questions via these videos too. In my entry 555, I described our approach to filming videos. I will adopt the same approach to filming my own videos on Instagram. I want them to be raw and authentic, without overstimulation and excessive editing. As a person living with sensory processing sensitivity, I find some videos very difficult to watch due to rapidly changing pictures and special effects. Many of my fellow humans are not on Instagram, and this is absolutely ok. I will continue to write my autoethnography. 

Some fellow humans mentioned to me that my autoethnography has been very difficult to navigate. I apologise for this, and I understand fully where this gentle criticism comes from. In the beginning, my autoethnography was simply my data. As a researcher using autoethnography (self-ethnography) as a research method, I rely on things like my personal notes, photographs, stories. Usually, these data are hidden from fellow humans, and the only thing a reader can see is an academic paper, the outcome. I understand that not everyone wants to share their data the way I do. So many insights that go into an autoethnographic study are incredibly personal. It makes one feel incredibly vulnerable. But I wanted all my data, and I mean all of it - there is absolutely nothing else - to be accessible equally to the reviewers and editors of journals and to everyone else. Free of charge. Because it was my data, my personal diary, I never thought about it as a blog. I don't have the right skills to make autoethnography look professional. I wanted it to look very simple and calming, without any extra elements apart from location (for context). Yet, recently I added the Archive to the bottom of the page so that everyone can reach the very beginning of my diary. It starts in 2022. This is because it was the year I started to formally study my practice, as a researcher. This is the very first academic article where I analyse my earlier data. It's called Being of deep transformations, just like this page. Between 2010 and 2022, I only took random notes and didn't keep them. As an extreme minimalist, perhaps I felt that I didn't need them as soon as my practices began to crystallise. I have also added a search function and hashtags in the bottom of the page. By clicking on the hashtags below each post, fellow humans can find all the posts where I mention a certain topic. I don't think they work perfectly: so many things intertwine in the realm of personal practice, making it difficult to attach labels to it.

At times, fellow humans ask me if there is a newsletter. So far, there isn't one. I have conflicting feelings about it. On one hand, I genuinely enjoy sharing, and it's heart-warming and humbling to learn that my practices inspire fellow humans in some ways on their own journeys. On the other hand, personally I'm not subscribed to newsletters. I try to avoid subscriptions as much as possible because they feel overwhelming and even forceful and intrusive. I try to keep my inbox as empty as possible. I appreciate it when I can approach some space whenever it feels right for me. Once a week, once in a few months or even once a year. 

There are no adverts in my autoethnography because my whole autoethnography is about being in and relating with the world differently, which also includes stepping away from consumerism and consuming mindfully. This project is not resulting in any financial benefit for me. Every guest lecture and workshop that I have done, I have done free of charge. Some fellow humans ask me if there is an opportunity to support my writing and my work. I will make it available. 

Apart from what I mentioned above, there are no concrete plans. I want this project to unfold organically. For example, I don't ever schedule my entries. In the future, when I have a little bit more free time (I'm currently working on a couple of academic articles), I hope to write more, perhaps even a book for my fellow humans who read my autoethnography. My existing books are academic. 

560

Stepping over the 17 weeks mark

The day I stepped over the 17 weeks pregnant mark coincided with me being at a crossroads. I'm feeling anxiety and sorrow.

Meanwhile, my body is changing, and it's wonderful to observe these changes. My body is expanding to help a human being grow. I've been working on the final changes in a co-authored chapter (it is about sufficiency and business, and is mainly theoretical, though there are illustrative examples too) and at the same time sensing so deeply my own materiality. It is so interesting how oftentimes academic works feel almost sterile while they are written by living human beings who breathe, eat, feel pain, go to the bathroom, and give birth. 

I still haven't felt my baby's moves yet. At least I cannot tell the difference between various sensations I am experiencing within my body's realm. 

I'm still wearing my normal clothes every day, apart from one pair of shorts that felt too tight around my waist. I haven't bought (or otherwise acquired) anything for the baby yet. I will not be buying any expensive items such as a pram or special furniture at all. I wrote more about it in this post. There won't be a baby shower either. As always, this is not how fellow humans should relate with inviting baby-related items into their lives. It's just my own story.

A fellow human asked: Do you plan to extend your minimalist practice to this domain [baby-related]?

What a wonderful question! My answer to it is yes, absolutely. To me, minimalist practices are not only practices of consumption and relating with objects differently, but they are also practices of relating with time, the self, human and non-human others, and nature, in the most beautiful way. Caring, loving, gentle, kind, considerate, respectful, empathetic, compassionate. Living with less frees up so much time for working on our true careers in the world: being good persons. Good friends, neighbours, parents, siblings, teachers, and so on.

These days, I think about my own childhood a lot, especially the chapter before I went to school. It was the happiest part of my childhood. After I started school, I felt so much pressure to do well academically, to do well in all subjects. I experienced this "doing well in everything" as something that didn't allow my unique self to thrive and develop organically, to figure out what my own interests were. I had to leave this figuring out until my early 20s. Excessive home work and extracurricular activities left almost no time for self exploration. I don't know if homework still exists (perhaps it depends on a country), but I feel that it encourages humans to develop an unhealthy relationship with work later on, such as working unpaid overtime, sacrificing one's wellbeing for one's job. 

Yet, many practices before I began my school education were nurturing, and I contemplate them in relation to my own yet unborn baby. My mother and stepfather never referred to those practices as practices of sustainable minimalism, zero-waste, slow parenting or voluntary simplicity. These exact words were not part of their vocabulary. But as a researcher, if I were to study their practices right now, I would say that they were aligned, in many ways, with these modes of living. 

I used to have some wooden toys, but most of the time I was allowed to play with common objects in the household. My favourite ones were shoe boxes and shoe laces, and books with illustrations that I couldn't read yet. The most magical objects were sea urchins, corals, and large shells in my grandmother's home, as well as her jewellery made from various stones. Perhaps some fellow humans would think that my family deprived my brother and me of toys, but I never felt that it was the case. At the age of, say 3 or 4, I did not know that those shoe boxes, spoons, or fruits were not sold as toys within the capitalist system.

Every day, we spent much time in nature. When we were in a big city, we went to a park. When we lived in a rural area, we simply went outside. The part where we went to looked to me, as a child, different every day. I was not unhappy about being in the same park every day. I only knew that it was full of magical creatures, toys and fascinating objects.

My mother and stepfather involved my brother and I in many day-to-day activities. We always wanted to help. Though we were not helping much in practical terms (as very young children, we were naturally clumsy and slow), helping was part of learning. Learning how to deal with food, how to plant seeds, how and when to harvest something. We were never watching tv when my mother and stepfather were cooking. 

I cannot ask my mother anymore (she died in her early 40s) whether or not there was any particular life philosophy behind it, but my family always gravitated towards natural materials too. Cotton, linen, wool, wood. As children, we were surrounded by items made from these materials. 

We were not supervised too closely and constantly. We were allowed to pick bugs to see them closer, to spend hours turning pages of some books, to touch the soil, to climb trees. 

My mother would read books and sing for us, but we were also encouraged to come up with our own stories, especially about the area that surrounded us and various beings (trees, mushrooms, the stars, the moon) in the universe. We were encouraged to listen to storms, winds, and rain. 

We ate simple food and would go out, as a family, rather rarely. Only for special occasions. We would bake at home, together. We would celebrate birthdays and other occasions with delicious, home-made food, convivial atmosphere and natural decorations. Most often, flowers. At times, something made from paper (e.g., paper snowflakes). 

We were encouraged to care for house plants and pets. I think it nurtured care in us, and a sense of responsibility. 

Up until I was 5 or so, and my brother was 3, we shared a room. Then each of us had their own room. We didn't have furniture specifically designed for children. In fact, our rooms never looked obviously different to a normal room where an adult human being would live. In my room, I often had flowers and other things I would bring home from nature. At times even living beings such as various bugs (which obviously was not a good practice). I would read and press flowers a lot. And I used to paint too. 

559

Reflecting on the kitchen tour

Edit: since writing this post, my partner and I discontinued our collaboration and thus deleted the channel on the video-sharing platform.

Recently, after receiving several gentle requests from my fellow humans, I filmed a kitchen tour. It was a collaborative project: my partner was filming. I asked him in he wanted to do the tour (and I would film) to create some balance (I did the wardrobe and the home tours), but he said no. And that's ok. 

I watched the kitchen tour myself after spending some time with the Sun. And I experienced different emotions. I was glad that I could show our kitchen to my fellow humans just as it was at that very moment. The idea behind it was that the space must be exactly as it would have appeared to a fellow human entering our space and asking if they could take a closer look at the kitchen. One might think, no one would ever ask anything like this. Yet, many fellow humans in our immediate social circle are sustainability researchers and practitioners. They enter this space, our home, as a space where my practice of sustainable living unfolds. I'm always happy to show them around and I always tell them that they can go anywhere in our apartment, open any door, look at anything. Then we talk about sustainability, our sustainability journeys and practices, experiences, empowering and constraining factors. I believe that such conversations should be normalised. I notice that they help me cope with eco-anxiety that I feel as a sustainability researcher and as a human being. Some years ago, my sustainability-related conversations with fellow humans focused a lot on capitalism and how capitalist systems and structures constrain. It's important to know and understand (I've co-written a whole book where many chapters focus exactly on this topic). But these days, I am equally, and perhaps even more, interested in what practices exist, what motivates and what empowers them. After my ex partner and I went our separate paths (we are very good friends now), he mentioned to me that he found endless conversations about "how things are so bad" draining. I accept his critique. And he is a sustainability practitioner too. His current project focuses on dealing with e-waste. 

In the kitchen, there are items that I feel a certain amount of shame about. Single-use plastic (e.g., packaging), imported fruits. Carbonated beverages in plastic bottles. But it had to be an authentic tour. Raw. One can certainly go to Torvehallerne here in Copenhagen and bring home abundant local, unpackaged produce, fresh fish, fresh bread, locally made beverages, honey, unpackaged cheese and jam. But I don't think it's how most people live. We certainly don't shop there often. It would not be affordable. I used to walk all the way to Torvehallerne at times, to get some local produce. In the past few months, I've been struggling to walk. First, due to hyperemesis, then due to dizziness. 

Watching the kitchen tour made me realise that I want to step back into some of my previous practices. I say it not with a feeling of shame but rather because I finally feel empowered again. A couple of weeks ago, I began to feel much better, though this week is the first one I'm feeling almost normal. 

It is interesting to observe how my and my partner's consumption patterns co-exist and intertwine in the same space. In the video, I say we most of the time, but my partner and I are individuals with our own preferences. For example, he makes tuna salad and likes baked beans and spices. He enjoys baking. For many years, I used to be completely plant-based. If there is one type of food I could choose to eat forever, it would be raw fruits and vegetables, supplemented by some pasta, rice, beans, and perhaps olive oil. I never use spices when I make food for myself. I love salt and herbs, especially fresh ones. 

My partner and I don't always eat together. He eats dinner with his child at his ex partner's and the child's apartment every Monday and Wednesday, as well as every other Friday and Saturday. We eat together at times, but not very often. Those are the days I eat exactly what I prefer. The kind of food that I eat would probably not be inspiring, interesting or delicious to many fellow humans. I would make a bowl of rice for myself, with a huge salad. Lots of chopped fresh herbs. And I would have a large plate of cut up fruits and a few pieces of dried fruits. 

There are some ideas in our kitchen that my partner implemented and I certainly should not take credit for them. For example, he set up our tiny refill station that serves us well. When I lived on my own, I would use soap bars for cleaning, or concentrated liquid Castile soap which I would then dilute. But then I lived in smaller spaces and didn't need as much as we need now. There are two, sometimes three of us, and the baby's on the way. The sparkling water making machine is something I could certainly live without, but it's wonderful to have sparkling water sometimes. I would live happily without the smoothie maker. When it's on, it makes a very loud noise which is almost painful to someone living with sensory processing sensitivity. It's less expensive to make smoothies than to buy ice cream from local ice cream shops (and they are closed now!). But if I lived on my own, I would rather buy ice cream from a local shop rarely to save money, and not have a smoothie maker. 

I feel ashamed of not loving the plates, bowls and cups that my partner inherited from his grandparents. I use them with gratitude, but their design feels very busy to me. I would not buy new ones because there are more than enough plates and bowls in our society, but when I see some free ones in a swap shop, I am certainly tempted to take them home. I don't do it because we have enough and the ones we have are usable and have sentimental value for my partner. I just don't love them as much as I would have loved something without any decorations. 

558

 Solitude

Though my partner and I live together, we don't spend every weekend together due to his childcare responsibilities. Every other weekend is a precious time that I spend with myself and non-human beings such as trees. 

Every human being is unique, and some need more time by themselves and with non-humans than others might do, and that's ok. When I still lived with my family of origin, my mother and stepfather would focus much on doing rather than being, and I often felt that I didn't have enough time to recharge and to have inner dialogues. By focusing on activities they often overlooked immersive experiences such as sitting with the sun and sleeping in the grass, sensing the world and being with, for a long time (and naming!) different emotions. I learned the word self-transcendence only later in my life, though I had felt it very often before. I do believe that my mother and stepfather meant well, but they were extroverted humans who felt energised and fulfilled after completing a set of activities, preferably in different locations, and being with fellow humans. 

My fellow humans, at times, ask me what I do every day. In this entry I will write about my typical weekend. I say typical because sometimes my partner, my stepchild and I spend time together. Sometimes we attend family events together, too. Otherwise, my partner leaves on Friday in the afternoon and comes back on Sunday in the evening. After he leaves, usually I go for a long walk in one of our local parks. In the past few months, I haven't been doing it so much because of hyperemesis gravidarum, but now, as I'm feeling better, I walk more again. 

I love, and walk in, all kinds of weather. Like many fellow humans, I enjoy being with the sun, especially in winter when there are not many sunny days here in the Nordics. But misty weather is magical too. It reminds me of stories we tell our children in this region about trolls and witches. Oftentimes, when it's very misty, many fellow humans prefer to stay home, and it feels that I'm in the park entirely by myself. Usually, when it is misty, it is also warm, and I feel like I am walking through a cloud. I love being with the rain too. I learned to embrace it when I lived in England. 

Because my partner and I often work together during the week, on my Fridays I try to catch up with my own tasks. Usually, I return to some article that I'm writing or to my editorial tasks at the journal where I serve as an associate editor (it's called Environmental Values). I prefer to work by myself, in an empty space and without any sound, apart from natural sounds of wind or rain. 

Being by myself means that I can eat whenever I want and whatever I love the most. I either eat earlier or later, but rarely at the time my partner and I eat together. I try to listen to my body to understand what it needs. My partner often says that my food preferences are those of a 4 year old. I never used to appreciate this feedback, but after contemplating it for a while, I think he might be right. Growing up, I ate a lot of vegetables, beans, and fruits. My family had a garden for some years, and they used to grow some vegetables there, as well as berries, sunflowers, beans, and corn. At times, we would forage too. Some of my favourite treats, as a child, were a bowl of foraged blueberries with a tiny bit of sugar, an orange peeled by my stepfather and arranged on a plate as a flower. I used to love pieces of grapefruit with sugar. Vegetable soups and salads. And I love such food these days too. Oftentimes, I make soup with the vegetables I have at home, a simple pasta dish with vegetables, or a salad. I almost never follow any recipes. I try to use what I have at home and combine ingredients intuitively, processing them as simply and minimally as possible. Being on my own means that I am the only person who needs to be satisfied with a particular dish, which feels liberating. I often cut up fruits and vegetables and arrange them on a plate to eat over some hours. 

I usually, but not always, go to bed early, around 9:30 pm, especially in winter. I love sleeping by myself, in the middle of our floor bed. These days, before I sleep, I focus on my body. I am excited about forthcoming first moves of my baby inside my body. I am grateful to my body for being a cosy home for my soul and for enabling me to experience life the way I do. I am present with my skin that sometimes doesn't feel well due to an autoimmune skin condition. And pregnancy came with many changes that I want to observe and honour. 

I wake up naturally. Early in summer, but late in winter. Our apartment is a top-floor one, and sometimes birds sit on the roof just above it. They often wake me up too. Even though I called this entry "solitude", in reality I am never by myself. There are birds, trees, the air, stars, the moon and the sun. I never get up immediately. I stay in bed for some time to contemplate life. I often feel dizzy in the morning, so when I do get up, I do it slowly. I let some fresh air in, even in winter, and make a drink to celebrate life. Usually, it's just a glass of tap water or sparkling water, with or without a piece of fruit. Then I take a shower. It's wonderful to be with the water. I don't have a skin care routine. I've written more about it in this entry. At times, though rarely, I use a wash cloth to say goodbye to some dead skin cells. The wash cloth I use is an old, undyed hand towel that shrank in the wash in our previous apartment and became too small for its original purpose. 

Afterwards, I make tea and try to be present with fellow humans' messages. I am incredibly lucky in that the fellow humans I interact with online are often fellow practitioners of sustainability (or are on paths of relating with the world differently), though in diverse ways. I learn from them, unlearn together with them. I feel gratitude for the wisdom and lived experiences that fellow humans share with me. And I try share my lived experiences too, primarily via this autoethnography. I don't have a personal diary. Everything that is on my mind is here. 

I don't have to-do lists and don't schedule my days. Generally, on my weekends, I try to clean my home. Even though it might sound controversial, I enjoy cleaning. We live with very few items, and I try to tidy up often, so cleaning is not a chore. It's a way for me to express gratitude to the space I live in and to use my body. I refill our soap, dish washing liquid and baking soda on my weekends. I also try to do the laundry. If there were more items to wash and more items to clean, I would ask my partner to do half of it, but because there are so few items, splitting every task would feel like unnecessarily complicating life. Usually, he cleans the drains and takes so-called waste out. 

Apart from cleaning, I walk, do gentle exercises at home, read and write. Writing takes several hours every day, but to me, writing is so many things at once. It is a healing activity. I share knowledge via writing my academic papers. Through writing, I grow as a person in all kinds of roles I play in society. It is my work, my safe space, and my hobby. On my Saturdays, which are my favourite days, I eat as I have described above. Intuitively would perhaps be the most appropriate word for it. I try to avoid going to shops, even to the cooperative supermarket where we buy most of our food, during my hours. My partner and I go to the supermarket on Sunday evening when he comes back. 

These days, I also talk to my yet unborn baby very often. I even read what I am reading to them (e.g., a lovely article that I enjoy or a philosophy book). Though they do not understand a word, it is an act of bonding and togetherness. 

I don't watch tv and, despite having started sharing videos via a video sharing platform, I very rarely watch videos either. I live with sensory processing sensitivity, and much editing, bright colours, frequent changes in visual content, and sounds often feel overstimulating to me.

To some fellow humans, this mode of living may come across as boring, and I appreciate it that not every human wants to live this way. Yet to me, this mode of living and relating with myself, with my life, and with time feels nurturing, wholesome, and healing. I choose the activities I love the most and spend many hours on each one of them. If I write, usually I write for many hours. If I walk, I take long walks. My life will certainly change when the baby arrives. I don't yet know what it will look like, but I hope to give to my baby what I didn't receive in my own childhood, and what I so desperately needed: nourishing slowness and deep immersion in life. 

557

Clothes

Recently, I answered a fellow human's question What do you generally look for when you need to buy new clothes? 

I decided to take pictures of all the items I have in my wardrobe, apart from underwear, socks and one pair of shorts that I'm not wearing these days because they don't fit me anymore due to pregnancy. The shorts that don't fit me are exactly the same colour as the pair of shorts in the picture above. The white top in the picture above came in a pack of two, but I didn't take a picture of the other one: it's identical. 

There is nothing else. 

My wardrobe is not seasonal: I don't put anything in storage. For example, I continue to wear shorts in winter, but I do it at home. I also continue to wear sweatpants in summer, as it can be rather cold here in the Nordics in summer months too. Even the woollen scarf I wear in summer as well: usually on cold days, when I travel by train or ferry, and when I'm by the sea in the evening. 

Every day, I wear a uniform: sweatpants (or shorts in summer), a basic top and my linen shirt. At times, I borrow my partner's clothes such as t-shirts and shorts. I also borrow his hats, but most of the time I just wrap the large woollen scarf (in the picture above) over my head and neck. Usually, my linen shirt dries overnight. Otherwise, I borrow one of my partner's shirts. I used to have another linen shirt that looked almost exactly the same as the one in the picture above. After many years, the shirt wore out and I haven't replaced it yet. I decided to give myself some time, several months, to contemplate before buying a new one. 

Both pairs of shoes were gifts: the grey clogs were gifted to me by my ex partner, who is now a good friend of mine. He gave them to me some years ago when I still lived in Sweden. I wear these shoes at home in winter and outside in summer. The hiking boots were gifted to me by my partner a few months ago.

I am over 15 weeks pregnant, and my body is changing. Many of the items of clothing that I live with are loose and comfortable and were bought years before I got pregnant. I wear loose clothing mostly due to my skin condition, to avoid close contact between with my clothes and my skin, but also because I prefer this style, which is something between pajamas and so-called menswear. I hope that many of these items will serve me until the baby is born and afterwards too. 

For simplicity, when I talk with my fellow humans about living with less with, I refer to my small collection of clothes an extremely minimalist wardrobe. I have a difficult relationship with the word extreme in this case. To me personally, having a large wardrobe, shopping often (new or second-hand), contemplating every day what I want to wear, taking my clothes somewhere for dry cleaning would feel incredibly overwhelming. My existing relationship with my clothes feels liberating and cosy.

556

 Skincare and routines

A small disclaimer that I am writing with a feeling of deep appreciation towards every human being's unique path: the entry below certainly does not describe how every human being needs to relate with their own skin, hair and with products, but rather how I do it. 

I have come to the realisation that for me, the best way to relate with skin and hair care products is not via routines, but via listening to my body and its diverse and changing needs, every day. The only times I follow skin care routines (i.e., I use prescription medication) is when I struggle with challenges caused by the autoimmune skin condition I live with. Such challenges have diminished substantially since I began to use very minimal skin care and stopped wearing makeup. 

Water is the only care product that I use consistently. Every day, or rather every morning, I take a shower. At times it's hot and at other times it's cold. An important part of my care towards my skin and hair is eating whole foods too. In summer, I try to be with the air as much as possible and practise naturism whenever I can. I also try to be with the sun early in the morning or late in the evening, for some minutes. 

And then I add products depending on what the needs of my skin and hair are. My partner and I share almost all the products that are in the picture above. My stepchild uses some of them too. More generally, we prefer to only have those products that all of us can use. 

We use a bar of soap every day, for our hands and body. We also have liquid soap that we refill.

We have a crystal deodorant, but we use it only when we feel we need to. 

We keep a small tin of petroleum jelly at home. It lasts a very long time and doesn't go bad. My partner uses it as a lip balm, I use it on very small cuts to avoid plasters. 

Recently, I invited a natural balm into my life again. I've lived without one for many months, but my skin usually gets drier as it gets colder here in the Nordics in winter. I use this balm for everything: as a lip balm, hand cream, face cream, body lotion, and even for my hair. 

We use sunscreen mostly in summer. 

Most of the time, I wash my hair only with water. But occasionally I use shampoo too. I used to borrow my partner's shampoo, but when it ran out, I bought an unscented one for both of us and my stepchild. In fact, none of the products we use, apart from the sunscreen, have a scent. In pregnancy, I have become even more sensitive to scents, so we avoid them. 

Generally, I prefer products that are multi-purpose (such as the balm I mentioned above), that can be used by the whole family, zero-waste, locally produced, with simple and natural ingredients, unscented, certified, accessible (so that I don't need to order them from another country), and affordable. It's not always possible to fulfil all of these requirements at once. In the past few months, I have not been able to get some of the products I used to use, or prefer, either. For example, I used to buy solid shampoo bars from a local shop. Due to hyperemesis gravidarum I could barely walk to the bathroom, let alone to the shop. 

Over time, my skin care hasn't changed much. The picture below was taken almost exactly a year ago, in January 2024. There's a bar of soap, solid shampoo, a multi-purpose balm, lip balm, crystal deodorant and toothpaste tabs. In the past month or so we have been using conventional toothpaste. We picked it up in the hospital where I stayed overnight. As I'm looking at the picture below, I'm thinking that many of the same products were used by my mother and grandmother too, and by myself when I was very young. 

At times, my fellow humans ask me if there are any particular brands or companies that I would recommend. It's certainly not what I strive to do (though for transparency, I always tell my fellow humans where something comes from, if they ask). For this reason, I try not to signal brands in my autoethnography. My main area of expertise, as an academic, is sustainability in business. After researching many businesses over the years, I see how complicated sustainability is. I also don't want to discuss any brands that I know rather little about, that I haven't researched myself as a sustainability researcher (not only as a consumer). Whenever possible, I try to buy from companies that are small and local, and what is local to me might not be local to my readers. Personally, I avoid being loyal to brands. In the past several years, I have moved a few times. In northern Sweden, I used a balm and a soap made in Sweden. In Finland, I bought similar products made in Finland by small Finnish companies. 

555

Recording a video as an extreme minimalist

Edit: since writing this post, my partner and I discontinued our collaboration and thus deleted the channel on the video-sharing platform.

Over the past couple of years, since I made my autoethnographic data public, and my fellow humans started reading this page as a blog, I have gotten requests to do videos too, in addition to sharing my written entries. 

My partner and I have been discussing this for a long time. Both of us have been wanting to share our knowledge and practice with fellow humans far beyond academia (both of us are researchers). To share our knowledge with others has even become one of our new year's resolutions. The other day, we received yet another invitation from a fellow academic to present our co-authored book Deep Transformations: A Theory of Degrowth to yet another academic audience. In the past, we often used to say yes to such requests. This time, we decided to decline, and instead use our time to record a video for the readers of my autoethnography and other fellow humans from all walks of life interested in sustainability transformations.

Before we recorded our first video, we discussed the principles that would guide us on this journey. It feels important to us that both our videos and the process of their recording align with our mode of living and relating with the world. The only experience we have with video recording is recording lectures for our students during lockdowns a few years ago. 

I don't watch videos often, but there are some practices that I have observed and that I would like to avoid. There are also some practices that I see value in and embrace. 

Lighting: we live in Denmark where days are short in winter, and it rains very often. It's often cloudy, too. I celebrate this beautiful weather and don't want to use extra electricity on extra lighting. 

Editing: we want our videos to be natural and organic, so we will edit them very minimally. Not at all, if possible. I want to avoid special effects, unnecessary pictures and videos within our videos. This is because editing uses a lot of energy/natural resources. Moreover, videos are incredibly heavy, their storage is energy consuming. There is another reason why I want to avoid excessive editing: I live with sensory processing sensitivity, and I find watching videos with many special effects very difficult to watch. 

Self-presentation: I live with 10 items of clothing and own no makeup. My partner wears a uniform. We will avoid creating different personas for our videos.

Frequency: we do not plan to publish videos every day x or day y. It's a creative process, and it's important to me to feel that I/we have something useful to share. 

Growth: we don't have a concrete plan for our videos, it will emerge as we walk this path.

Script: I want to approach our video recording in the same way I approach lecturing. When I lecture, I don't write scripts beforehand and don't rehearse my lectures, because to me it feels important to be present in the moment, with my students. I usually have some bullet points though. In our first video I was looking rather much at my partner's laptop screen that was in front of us. And that's ok. 

Subscribing: There will be no "please subscribe to our channel". It's every human being's personal decision. 

Gentleness and care: these two words are central to our academic work. They are in our own definition of degrowth. I have written an editorial with the same name. These principles are also central to my practice. For this reason, I want to avoid recording videos that are not in line with these principles. 

Earnings: our channel where we will be sharing our videos is not designed to be a money-making enterprise, especially considering the principles that I've just shared. 

I disabled comments in my autoethnography because it's still my academic work. I cannot assume that my fellow humans who post comments here want their comments to be read, for example, by reviewers of academic articles. I hope that the comments below our videos will be the space that is missing from my autoethnography. Apart from the comment section, there is also an opportunity to reach out via my email address. You can find it here.

554

A fellow human asks: Do you have an emergency kit for when/if you need to evacuate?

This is a very important question. Living an extremely minimalist lifestyle entails relying on so many systems and structures working perfectly. I rely, for example, on the cooperative supermarket nearby and on food always being available there, safe tap water, warm water, electricity, transport, pharmacies. I often take these systems and structures for granted. Denmark feels like a safe place. In the area where I live, Copenhagen, we are not exposed to extreme weather events, and most fellow humans in this area, I believe, do not feel that their life is in danger. Yet, many fellow humans in other parts of the world are exposed to extreme weather events and live in fear of emergency situations. I have lived in a rural area where winds could be extremely strong, which could prevent my family from getting food and having electricity at home. I have lived in an area that would often be flooded, and in properties where water could be turned off for a long time. 

Being prepared for an adverse situation is not an anti-minimalist practice. When I was at school, we had classes that covered various topics related to natural and human-caused disasters, survival, and health emergencies. I am supportive of such education. While I have not, so far, been in a situation where I had to use much of the knowledge I received during those classes, some of the knowledge I received (e.g., first aid) has been incredibly useful. Some of that knowledge was specific to the place where I used to live. Since then, I've lived in several different countries, and in every place where I lived, I wanted to learn more about both natural and human-caused emergencies that could unfold. And this is something, I believe, every fellow human could consider: giving oneself a gift of quality time learning about potential adverse situations in one's region. I think that it can be approached with feelings of self-love and care towards oneself and fellow others (humans and non-humans), not with feelings of fear and anxiety. To me it's always felt especially important to educate myself on these matters, as perhaps fellow humans who have lived in a particular country since birth might already have this knowledge. 

If I lived in an area where, for example, natural disasters were common, I would do my best to be prepared for such situations. I would still consider myself an extreme minimalist. 

As I live in an area that currently feels safe, I am prepared only for challenging situations but not, say, natural disasters. There have been occasions when I could not go out to get food and medicine for many days. I try to always have food at home that would last me and my partner a few days. At all times, I keep first aid supplies. I also keep extra hygiene products and prescription medications that I take. When I lived with non-human beings, I always made sure that I have enough food, medicine, and necessary hygiene products for them, too. 

My family and I used to live in an area where tap water would not be safe to drink and it could be turned off. My mother and stepfather always kept fresh water at home, as well as food, first aid supplies, and medicine, and they would talk to me and my brother about it. I'm very grateful for these childhood experiences, especially because such things were explained to us in a calm and caring manner. 

If I need to evacuate, I would only take my bag with me that has my id, phone and bank card. I live with very few items, and apart from the items that are already in my bag, none of them are essentials. I try to avoid being overly prepared and buy items that are not recommended by the local authorities. There are for-profit businesses that make money by capitalising on people's fears and anxiety. 

Here is some information from the Danish Emergency Management Agency (Beredskabsstyrelsen) regarding preparedness for crises (in English). Here is a checklist prepared by the same agency. I think that paying attention to special needs is incredibly important. 

Here is some information from the American Red Cross about similar topics. 

553

Dear fellow humans,

this morning, I felt a deep need to start my day slowly. I wanted to contemplate and answer one of the questions I have received instead of diving into my other tasks (e.g., completing an article, as there is a deadline). Before I answer the question I chose to spend some quality time with, there is a tiny update. My time at Roskilde university has come to an end, and it cannot be prolonged because I have just submitted another application for a residence permit, to stay here in Denmark. While the authorities are processing this application, I am not allowed to work (or even volunteer!). Since I will loose access to my Roskilde university account, you can reach me via another email address. You can find it here. 

A fellow human asks: What do you generally look for when you need to buy new clothes? 

It's such a wonderful question. Questions such as this one remind me how sustainability manifests in our everyday actions and decisions. In what we eat and wear, where we choose to spend our money, how we choose to relate with, e.g., objects and time. And while I think, very often, about the general principles that guide me on my path (such as gentleness and care) and about the qualities I want to nurture in myself (such as empathy and compassion), every day I also think about what to eat and where to get it from, how to reach some town here in Denmark, which soap to buy. 

I buy new clothes very rarely, and it doesn't depend on how much I earn. I live with 10 or so items of clothing: 2 pairs of sweatpants, 2 pairs of shorts (though 1 doesn't fit anymore due to pregnancy), 3 basic tops, 1 linen shirt, 1 jacket, 1 woollen scarf. At times, I borrow my partner's white t-shirts, and will probably do so more often as my body is changing, and the basic tops will probably not fit as well. 

I wear the same outfit every day, no matter what I do: sweatpants, a basic top and my linen shirt. I wear this outfit when I teach. Recently, I wore it to my own wedding and when I celebrated Christmas with my family.

I buy something when I need to replace an item. A while ago, I had two linen shirts. Unfortunately, one of them wore out (it happens when one lives with very few items and thus wears the items they have very often). I haven't replaced it yet as my partner and I were planning to start a family. I will probably replace it sometime this year, so I'm mainly thinking about this item as I'm writing these words. Here are some characteristics that I'm looking for (many of them are related):

Simplicity. I look for simple items. They must be easy to care for and repair. I don't buy items that require special care, such as dry cleaning, or are difficult for me to repair. I avoid items that have too many details on them, or things like words, patterns and logos. 

Durability. I don't buy anything that is made from very thin fabrics. This is because I don't want to be extremely careful when I am with nature or with children. I want to be able to sit in the park, by the sea, sleep in the grass, and not worry about my clothes.

Versatility. Above, I mentioned that I wear the same outfit for all occasions. To me, it is important that I feel good in what I wear. I wear the same items in summer and in winter. I want to be able to use the shirt as a beach dress and to wear for my lectures. I want to sleep in this shirt too if I'm cold. 

Colour. As someone living with sensory processing sensitivity, I prefer to wear colours that are not stimulating for me and that match the rest of my wardrobe. I feel cosy and safe with colours such as off-white and cool beige. I understand that many fellow humans prefer other colours, and I celebrate their preferences too: I do not encourage anyone to wear only beige unless this is genuinely something they wish to do. 

Material. I live with an autoimmune skin condition. There are many types of fabrics that I cannot wear. And that's ok. Such fabrics are mostly synthetic, so it aligns well with my desire to live more sustainably. I usually go for organic cotton and linen. I've found it relatively easy to find organic cotton sweatpants, shorts and linen shirts. But when it comes to jackets for cold climates, in the past few years I've worn a jacket made from polyester. I bought it in northern Sweden. 

Sustainability credentials. To me, it is important that the materials are natural and organic. I try to buy items that are made in Europe because this is where I live (if I lived elsewhere, I'd look for locally produced items). I prefer items that are undyed, but this has not been possible to fulfil (the cotton shopping bags and some of the cotton pouches that I live with are undyed though). I prefer to buy from companies that actively pursue sustainability. It goes without saying, I avoid fast fashion. 

These were the main characteristics that I look for when I need to buy new clothes. There is certainly a large gap between my practice and what I would ideally love to wear. When I was doing my PhD, I researched a tiny craft business. The fellow human who owned the business grew her own flax, made her own fibres and then linen fabric from it. She would make her own dresses. She also used natural dyes. A dress like this, she said, would cost several thousands British pounds, which is not affordable for most people. I would like to wear only craft clothing. Yet, this is not something I can do, at least not at this period of my life. So my approach is to have less and do the best I can. 

There is no particular company or a brand that I can recommend. My main area of expertise is sustainability in business, and I don't know of any company that makes affordable clothes that satisfy my criteria. There are so many things that are hidden from consumers, such as the business's ownership structure, their relationships with suppliers, and employee's wellbeing. I also think that some brands have become must-have brands amongst sustainability practitioners. Such companies seem to work with influencers rather a lot. It might take our attention away from local companies that might be smaller and not have large marketing departments, but that might also be more sustainable. 

Whenever possible, I try to avoid wearing clothes. It is mostly possible at home, my partner's summer house (including the garden), and beaches here in Denmark. I practise naturism whenever I can because my main priority is not my relationship with clothes, but my relationship with my body as it is. 

552

 Emails

In my autoethnographic work, I usually don't talk about carbon footprint specifically. I prefer to contemplate deep transformations instead, because beyond contributing to carbon emissions, there are many other ways in which we contribute to ecological and social degradation. Having said that, I still want to have a small carbon footprint. Sending, receiving and storing emails - all of these have a carbon footprint. I couldn't find any excellent data on environmental costs of these action, but here, for example, is an old article (in The Guardian) that covers this topic. One might ask why I care about emails at all if I don't have excellent data that would empower me to reconsider my relationships with emails. Others might question the importance of paying attention to such small things. Avoiding flying and driving, and eating plant-based food would probably result in a more significant contribution. I do avoid flying, I don't drive and eat mostly plant-based already. I care about my relationship with emails not only because of their carbon footprint, but also for my personal wellbeing. In this entry I want to say more about my practice in relation to emails. 

I have two accounts, one personal and one university account. There are around 13 emails in my university inbox. My personal inbox one can see above. There are 4 emails (there is nothing in the Other folder). I believe that deleted emails are stored for some time too by providers and universities. Here in Denmark, authorities don't send emails or letters. They communicate with residents via digital post, so all the important emails that I would have stored in my personal Inbox are not there. I get notifications about new emails in the digital post via email, but I delete them immediately. I've developed a habit to address important letters as soon as possible. 

University mails:

Like other academics, I receive emails relatively often. Many of those emails are from the system of the journal where I serve as an associate editor. I delete such emails as soon as I receive them and simply check the system regularly. I usually immediately delete, and never store, emails that cover university news. Some might be critical of this practice, but too often such emails read more like marketing material than relevant news. Academics often receive spam emails. I report and delete them. Generally, every time I receive an email, I try to address or answer it as soon as possible (especially when students and my autoethnography readers reach out). Alternatively, I delete it if it doesn't require a response, or if I know that correspondence will not be nurturing for me or the sender. For example, once I was invited to contribute an academic piece by a fellow human who claimed to know my work well. After I sent a draft to them, they mentioned that my work did not align with their own conceptions. I decided to avoid engaging in further conversations, as most likely it would not be a nurturing exchange: there are so many other spaces where I can spend my energy. Over many years at universities, I've never regretted deleting emails. There have been several occasions where I felt that an email needed to be kept. One such situation was a case of plagiarism. At times, I receive an email that I want to respond to, but if I know that I will be seeing the sender soon enough, I will not respond via email. For example, my partner and I work together. Usually I don't respond to his emails, as I see him in person every day. I try to set up quick meetings with fellow humans (in person or online) instead of writing emails if I feel that it will be better (this obviously does not apply to situations of, say, harassment and other bad behaviour - it is always best to have emails as evidence). 

Personal emails:

At times, my fellow humans ask me how many personal items I live with, as an extreme minimalist. It's less than 50, but I usually avoid counting my possessions and presenting some number to my fellow humans. This is because I do not believe that there is an ideal number, and the number of items I live with is certainly not in any way perfect or a benchmark for anyone (even myself). Moreover, this number fluctuates. Yet, when it comes to emails, ideally I want to keep no more than 10 emails in my inbox. In fact, 0 would be even better. Currently, there are four emails: one came from Swedish railways (SJ), one is a receipt from a local wine shop (where I bought a gift for my partner), one is from an academic journal, and the last one is from a museum here in Copenhagen (the attachment contains the tickets I bought). If one looks at the dates, it is obvious that these emails are recent. I don't keep old emails. 

Above, I said that all the important electronic letters are sent by the Danish authorities via digital post. When an email comes from, say, Swedish authorities (I used to live in Sweden), I try to address it immediately and avoid keeping it. I do write down case numbers though if I know that I will need them.

I avoid subscribing to any marketing communications, so I don't get such emails. The only ones that I do get come from our local train companies. I get them rarely though, and delete them immediately if I know I will not use their current offers. 

I buy online, but I do so very, very rarely. I don't keep electronic receipts. I will delete the receipts that are in my inbox currently after my partner redeems his gift card and after we have visited the museum.

At times, I get electronic receipts when I buy something in a physical store. But I buy new things so rarely that I haven't even got any such receipts currently.

10-15 years ago I received some emails from fellow humans that I did not find nurturing, loving or caring. I block such communications immediately and do not engage in them. I strongly believe in gentle communication that serves both the sender and the receiver. If this is not the case, I step away from it. I don't encourage my family members and friends to communicate with me via email. I prefer to talk to them in person. 

It goes without saying that safety is incredibly important, so I avoid sending and receiving my or others' private information via email. I educate myself about safety and security. If I feel that I don't understand something (e.g., a particular kind of scam), I will ask an IT engineer to help me understand it. I avoid communicating with hospitals and other institutions via email: such institutions often have internal messaging systems. 

I don't keep emails that are related to situations that I want to free myself from. For example, if it's a rejection letter, I will read it but not keep it. 

I avoid responding unnecessarily. For example, after I left my previous university as an act of protest against harassment, I received an email from HR. They made an error and asked me to transfer a couple of hundreds euros to them. I reached out to the university department that deals with these issues specifically and resolved the situation with them instead of engaging in conversations with the department's own HR (they were incredibly unhelpful when I called out my manager's bad behaviour). Having said that, when there is a positive experience, I make sure that I reach out to fellow humans with gratitude and appreciation. In the past few years, I've moved several times, and have had many conversations with Swedish and Finnish authorities. Very often, fellow humans working for various government agencies have been helpful and extremely kind. While they were doing their jobs, I felt that they were doing them with much love and humanness. I would then respond to their emails to acknowledge that. 

551

Buying items for the baby

A fellow human asks: Do you have any list of what you will buy for the baby?

This question felt very timely: I read it when my partner and I were discussing setting up a tiny savings account so that we can buy some items for the baby in the future. We also decided to have conversations with our family members about gift-giving in advance so that they can contribute financially rather than invite objects into our life that we do not need or want. 

Currently, I am just over 14 weeks pregnant. These weeks have been very stressful and challenging with hyperemesis gravidarum, multiple infections, multiple hospital visits, scans and medications. Yet, at this moment, I'm feeling hopeful. Days are finally getting longer, and the first trimester scan looked good. I am looking forward to spring and summer, to being with the healing sea and the sun. The baby is due in the very beginning of July. The midwife we saw last time (at our first trimester scan) mentioned that there is a 70% chance that the baby is a boy (both my partner and I have this feeling too for some reason). 

Since I got pregnant, on many occasions I tried to sketch a list of what we will buy (or otherwise acquire) for the baby. But every time, the list that manifested in my mind was so short that I thought there wasn't any need to actually write it down. 

It goes without saying that my list may be different to fellow pregnant persons' lists. My list is not a benchmark for my fellow humans. It's how I personally choose to relate with objects. And another disclaimer: at this stage, I can't be absolutely sure that the pregnancy will be successful. I also can't be sure what exactly we will buy, because it depends on so many things. For example, I was expecting to buy nothing in the first trimester of my pregnancy, but I ended up buying so many medications that were prescribed to me as I was living with hyperemesis gravidarum and multiple infections. 

In my practice of parenting, I plan to implement the same principles (such as sufficiency and simplicity) that I have lived by in the past 15 years or so. They work well for me and I hope that they will serve my baby too. I strongly believe that I am enough. I can provide love, care, gentleness, reassurance, safety, warmth, food and so many other things to the baby. I am meant to do so by nature, like other diverse fellow beings. If I cannot fulfil some function, I will turn to the healthcare system. 

We decided to buy nothing before the baby is here. When I say buy, I do not necessarily mean buy new. If possible, we would love to invite second-hand items into our lives. 

I decided not to read any books about pregnancy. Like other pregnant persons, I am very interested in what is unfolding in my body. But I feel that I get sufficient information from the Danish authorities and the NHS. I also receive plenty of information from healthcare professionals here in Denmark. Instead of reading books about pregnancy, I read the usual literature that I enjoy, such as Walden by Thoreau, Bhaskar's MetaReality, or Seneca's Letters. It feels so important for me to nourish my philosophy of life that also empowers me as a mother. At times, I read some paragraphs out loud for the baby, though they probably don't hear just yet and even if they do, they don't understand. And that's ok.

Even though my dream has always been water birth at home, considering the pregnancy challenges I'm living with, I intend to give birth at a hospital here in Copenhagen. Afterwards, most likely, I will stay there for a few days as a first time mother.

When the baby is here, we plan to invite into our life a small mattress made from natural materials and a cover for it. The mattress will be by my side of our bed. My partner and I sleep on the floor, and the three of us will sleep on the floor. When the baby is old enough, they will co-sleep with us, in our bed. 

I intend to babywear and do not plan to buy a stroller. I want to carry my child myself and keep them very close to me at all times. We hope to get a second-hand baby carrier. 

My beautiful and inspiring stepmother-in-law promised to knit something for the baby. Perhaps she will knit a blanket and/or some clothes. As for clothes, I don't know how big the baby is going to be, so I don't want to buy anything in advance. I was born a few weeks before my due date, and I was small. In the first months, apart from cloth diapers, I wasn't wearing anything. I was wrapped in cloths made from cotton. We plan to use cloth diapers too. 

I don't plan to buy skincare for the baby. When I was born, my mother and grandmother used plain water and a cloth (and later soap too) to keep my skin clean. I was born with an autoimmune skin condition, and most products would irritate my skin. When the baby is older, I plan to share the products I use with them. I use plain water and a balm that was originally made for babies (I will write more about it soon). The baby will be born in summer, and I plan to keep them out of the sun until their skin is strong enough to tolerate zero-waste sunscreen that is designed for babies (that I will also use). 

I hope to be able to breastfeed my baby. I don't plan to buy anything for this, unless I have to. Recently, my partner jokingly asked what I will do if I have a meeting. I intend to breastfeed at the university too, and during online meetings. 

We will most likely buy several plain cloths and towels too. 

There are many things that we do not plan to buy. We will not have a baby room, so we will not buy any furniture and décor. I do not want to invite into my life a baby monitor, a dedicated changing table (I am happy to use the floor), a white noise machines. I want to avoid disposables as much as possible and products designed for a certain purpose (such as a diaper bag). I do not want to own a bathtub either or items that were not there when I was born (e.g., a baby gym). If possible, I would love to avoid pacifiers (I didn't want them when I was a baby). I will not welcome into our life any plastic toys and other products that I do not feel comfortable with (such as baby perfumes, scented baby lotions, clothing and textiles with corporate characters on them, luxury baby products/status items, and baby shoes). We do not have a car and avoid cars more generally, so we will not have a baby car seat. 

550

 Writing again and makeup

For several months, I was barely working on my academic articles, as I was living with hyperemesis gravidarum. These days, this pregnancy complication feels more like what I imagine normal morning sickness to be. I often feel nauseous, tired (even exhausted) and dizzy and keep my medication nearby. Some days are worse than others, but I'm able to sketch academic articles yet again. The autoethnographic article I'm working on is about empowering factors, i.e., what empowers me in my practice. I've been dreaming about writing this one for a long time, mainly because what empowers me on my journey can empower fellow humans too on their own sustainability paths. Some fellow humans in academia hold a view that autoethnography is all about one person, the author's self, hence not useful. And while I, as anyone else, am a unique human being, the systems I live within are the same systems others live within too. Human experiences are so diverse, but often so similar too. 

Why don't I stop writing until I feel normal again? My articles are my creative outlet. Academic work is creative work. And being in the moments, even months, of suffering, is a precious time of honouring pain that everyone feels and imperfections of a sustainable lifestyle. Yet, I feel that this year I will publish less. And I feel good about it. Just like in some years I live with more and in other years with less, some years I create more, and in other years less. This year I also intend to create differently, with a focus on sharing more with fellow humans outside academia.

As I was writing the article, I was thinking about diverse non-human beings. I use this word (non-humans) in a very broad sense. It encompasses everyone: animals, plants, the sea, the stars, rocks, and so on. Non-humans' presence in my life empowers my practice of living with less in many ways. In my autoethnography, on multiple occasions I mentioned the cat I lived with who inspired me to try and wear the same thing every day. When I experienced harassment from a manager and very little support from the university, I often spent time with the sea, the sun and the stars to observe their vastness. The manager's ambitions paled in comparison. Before my now-husband and I became a couple, we'd been through a very difficult time. For a long time, he was trying to choose between us and the life he had. Instead of suffering, I chose to spend as much time as possible with non-human beings. My love towards the universe, towards the sea, the stars and trees felt so overwhelming in comparison to my feelings towards him. 

Recently, I was looking at the snow, a magpie who visited my balcony, the sky and the tulips that my partner gave me as a gift. I was thinking, these flowers are so beautiful as they are, they would not look better if they were covered in paint. This magpie would not be prettier with makeup and jewellery. It made me reflect on my relationship with makeup once again. At times, I think a lot about it, at other times I even forget about its existence. 

I've not worn makeup since my early 20s (I'm 35). Before I continue, I want to say that my reflections are not meant to be judgemental towards those fellow humans who choose to wear makeup. My grandmother who inspired me in many ways has worn makeup since her youth, and it's not my intention to encourage her to discontinue this practice. She always wore the same thing: a lipstick in a shade of deep, cool red-purple (her nail polish always matched). And not much (if anything) else, though she did have a collection of makeup. She styled her eyebrows with some petroleum jelly. It was her signature look. Something that I found particularly inspiring in the way she related with makeup is that she often wore it at home, for herself. 

Over the years, many fellow humans mentioned to me that they would like to stop wearing makeup. I feel that these reflections are for them. 

In my experience, the path of living more sustainably is, in many ways, about shedding. Shedding internalised societal norms and expectations, others' perspectives that are disempowering and unhelpful (once a fellow PhD student told me that I was not doing enough to attract men, referring to my appearance/style), a view that I am not enough. Shedding the so-called beauty industry's messages of my deficiency (often presented as self-care, expressing and treating myself and so on!). 

Some practices I've been working, and walking, towards for a long time, even years in some cases (such as living in a tiny apartment). Other practices I implemented rather quickly. One day I decided to stop wearing makeup. I must say that before that, I'd never seen makeup as a very important part of my life or an important means of self-expression. It was just something I did, because my mother did it, others did it, and I thought I had to. And then I realised that I was enough. I am like this magpie, like this tulip and the snow. I am like a tree or a stone. When I say this to my fellow humans, they often say to me that people have worn makeup forever. There are many things that humans have done for a long time. It does not mean we cannot question or reflect on them. 

These days, our relationship with ourselves is influenced, if not guided, by enormous industries that do not have my self-love and self-care in mind. They rely on me (and fellow others) feeling deficient. Faulty, ugly, old, imperfect. Me not wearing makeup does not hurt anyone. It liberates. It adds to a diversity of modes of relating with objects. My chosen way of relating with makeup is not to invite it into my life. It is to be like non-humans. I don't want to conceal anything, highlight anything, or enhance anything. I want my child to kiss my face spontaneously. I want to walk in the rain without an umbrella, jump into the sea whenever I feel like. I want to cry whenever, without worrying about my mascara or eyeshadows. I want to splash some water on my face and go to bed. I don't want to worry about releasing even more human-made substances into Water that I love. 

When I was at school and then at university, many fellow students wore makeup. Some would get up early in the morning to apply makeup. Some said they skipped meals to afford makeup and perfumes. Yet, there were always students who wore no makeup. There were other persons, such as my stepfather's sister and mother, who wore none, too. I think it's so important to recognise this existing diversity and seek inspiration and empowerment in the spaces that align with one's path. 

I've always lived with an autoimmune skin condition. My relationship with my skin improved immensely when I stopped wearing makeup. My skin became much healthier. 

I don't make any exceptions in my practice. I do not wear makeup when I lecture. I don't wear it for special occasions. Not even for my own wedding. I don't own any and don't plan to ever buy any ever again.