How to become/be an extreme minimalist?
I receive this question (How to become/be an extreme minimalist?) from my fellow humans very often. After 15 years of being on this journey, I should have a good answer, right? Yet, it's such a difficult question. My partner and I were talking about it for hours the other day. I'll share some thoughts in this entry.
I feel that the question is difficult to answer partly because there is no single definition of extreme minimalism. This space reminds me of my academic field (sustainability/degrowth), where many humans have their own definitions. I believe that we agree on some very essential features of degrowth but we still want to highlight other features too. As a person coming from an anarchist perspective, I feel uncomfortable with a small minority of humans promoting a particular definition of something, while discounting diversity of voices. For example, one might define extreme minimalism as living with fewer than 132 items. But where does this number come from? As a social scientist, I am sceptical about such numbers. They feel random to me. Perhaps they arise from one's personal experience. But everyone's experience is different. What is a good amount of possessions for a healthy male fellow human travelling full-time is very different to what is a good number of possessions for me, a pregnant, female human being, living permanently in a city, with a partner and with health conditions. If we consider the first example as the benchmark, it will not be achievable to most persons. And if we, for some reason, believe that the first example is better, then extreme minimalism will be a source of suffering rather than liberation. In my academic work I simply say that extreme minimalism entails living with obviously less than what is normal in one's society.
With my partner, we thought it was such a fun thought experiment: one can instantly become an extreme minimalist by simply getting rid of everything. Eating only in restaurants so that one doesn't need any kitchen equipment. Using taxis so that one doesn't need a bike, a car or a travel card. One can rent many things, use single-use items. One can stay in hotels or other accommodations. This is not sustainable or realistic. Moreover, it's a privileged and a very expensive lifestyle. I do not believe that extreme minimalism should be expensive. It should be much less expensive than a lifestyle characterised by overconsumption.
Rather than asking oneself how to become/be an extreme minimalist, perhaps it's helpful to ask oneself deep questions such as Why do I want to live with less/what is enough? Would I feel more liberated if I lived with less/enough? Would I have more financial freedom, more free time, better mental health? Would my relationship with myself, fellow others and nature improve?
And then outline a path towards living with enough. It should not feel extreme. It should feel harmonious, calming, abundant.
For me personally, enough entails living without furniture or with very few furniture items if I'm sharing my space with a fellow human. Not having any decorations apart from stones, shells, sand and flowers from nature. Living with under 20 items of clothing: I've noticed that more is unnecessary because I still wear the same 10 or so items, and less is unnecessarily restrictive because I live in Denmark where it's cold in winter but warm in summer. I live in a space that fellow humans consider empty because this space is calming for me. It feels peaceful. As someone living with sensory processing sensitivity, I need this kind of space to rest and to create. For the same reason, I wear mostly white. As someone living with an autoimmune skin condition, I wear mostly natural fabrics, loose clothes that don't irritate my skin. I wear no makeup and use very few personal care items. But this is just my story. I strongly believe that one can call themselves an extreme minimalist and live with what is enough for them while wearing bright colours, wearing makeup, having pictures on the walls, and so on. Partly, I practise extreme minimalism for ecological reasons. Nature would not suffer if I bought a painting in a second-hand shop. I don't do it because I'd find it overstimulating, not because I believe that second-hand art, inherited art, one's child's art, or even art bought from a local artist is destructive or bad.
It's always been very important to me to be transparent about my health in my autoethnography, so that fellow humans can, like I have done, trace at least some of my practices to this rather than to an ideology.
To become a practitioner of extreme minimalism, a human being perhaps should have an inner dialogue about themselves, their preferences, what makes their life good, while recognising that a lot of pressure to consume and reinvent themselves comes from the system in which we are embedded. From someone's pursuit of profit, from others' pursuit of earnings, from unexamined norms, from toxic standards. Very often in my academic field we say that our society is incredibly individualistic. In some ways, it is, but it also is not. All humans are expected/hoped for by corporations to behave as a collective force, to consume more. As a pregnant person, I experience the following: I am expected to buy a stroller. I am expected to buy a baby monitor. I don't want any of these things. I am an individual and want to decide for myself what I want and what I don't want to invite into my life. For this reason, extreme minimalism seems so extreme.
At the core of my actual practice is my sufficiency list (laptop, phone, passport and documents, bank card, shoes, bag, reusable bag, towel, underwear and socks, tops, trousers/shorts, jacket, scarf, bowl, pot, cutlery set, blanket, notebook and pen, personal care). Everyone's sufficiency list would look very different. My grandmother would not have a laptop on her sufficiency list, neither would she have trousers. She is a very feminine person who loves dresses. She would certainly have a lipstick and a matching nail polish on her list. My brother would never have white or black tops and trousers on his list. He never wears these colours. He loves green and orange. Their practice is not worse than mine. It's just different.
