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RE: Trying to Live Simply or Simply Trying to Live: Cabin Porn and Poverty Appropriation!?
Good stuff. Some personal questions for you regarding the article, because minimalism is hard to achieve.
Have you made concrete moves towards being minimalist? If so, where did you move from and to? Do you have a family? What kind of reduction did you see in monthly spending? What do you do for a living?
Thanks and nice insights (full disclosure, I didn't read July's article which you were rebutting)
Hey Daut, Thank you!
For me personally, I'm still in the middle of the cognitive dissonance. I deal with it every-damn-day. I refuse to accept materialism, but I also find it hard to 'sweep my tinsel' out the door.
"Obstinate are the trammels, but my heart aches when I try to break them. Freedom is all I want, but to hope for it I feel ashamed. I am certain that priceless wealth is in thee, and that thou art my best friend, but I have not the heart to sweep away the tinsel that fills my room.
The shroud that covers me is a shroud of dust and death; I hate it, yet hug it in love. My debts are large, my failures great, my shame secret and heavy; yet when I come to ask for my good, I quake in fear lest my prayer be granted.” -Rabindranath Tagore
This is a really personal question to me! My financial situation forces a kind of minimalism on me. (I wouldn't go so far as to say I'm in poverty, or even poor, but it's a struggle to pay both rent or food these days. It's weird here in California, a weird mix of luxury and poverty). I find myself unable to pursue what I've studied and have taken work in an office. I make do with my phone that doesn't work properly, and my car that's falling apart and that my landlord is a slumlord. I deal with chronic pain and juggle which bill to pay this month. Yet, if you've seen my videos, my walls are decorated with art and I'm certainly not going to starve to death anytime soon! It's become the new norm. It wasn't always this way, so I cling to those possessions from a former life, only heightening the cognitive dissonance.
True minimalism is something just beyond my reach, that will require all my bravery and wits. Being stretched so thin I cannot make a mistake or misstep in reorganizing my life because there is no safety net beneath me. Not if I wish to maintain my autonomy and participate in society (which I feel is vital to shifting these paradigms from within!) I hope it is something I can achieve in the future, when I am able to formulate a concrete decision about the best path for my life.
Yet there is celebration in making do with less. I'm glad not to be in debt. It's given me profound respect for those who've never had it any other way. It's made me more generous and more loving.
Concrete actions I take... hmm... I don't like buying anything new! I do a lot of shopping at thrift stores! Yard sales too! There are amazing finds to be had, which can be found at a fraction of the price .It does allow me to live more within my means.
It fosters creativity to fix things or re-purpose them! Also finding things that are both functional and beautiful is important, doing away with the extraneous and keeping only what speaks to my heart.
As I mention, the radical reorganization of ones life is not to be undertaken lightly and just for funsies!
Yes, I'm located in Irvine California and the cost of living is absurd compared to other places I've lived: for instance, my 600 square foot 1 bedroom studio is 1.5x more per month than the 3 bedroom 2 bath apartment I had in Scottsdale, Arizona 5 years ago.
I've never personally used it, but have you heard of soylent? It's essentially a meal replacement, which contains all of the nutrients your body needs, in liquid form and costs ~$60 a week. I love to eat and probably spend 5-6 times that on food, so if you were looking for one way to start minimizing, this is a good start and an easier (relatively, changing your diet completely is obviously very hard) way to save funds instead of finding new apartments or moving to the woods.
wow, Soylent green ? omg
Soylent is a novel solution to the problem! I'm not sure that's quite right for me. I love my food! My steemian network buddies might disown me!
I think taking the time to cook, cooking from scratch, and being creative can help mitigate the costs of food in a way that better fits my lifestyle. Cooking is entertainment for me too!
But I know bachelors who swear by it!
It isn't that economical to be frank, it's just convenient. It's more or less like ensure or similar meal replacement/adjuncts. However it's in powder form and thus has it's benefits in that regard over your typical bottles or cans of ensure and similar. The cost per 2k calories is about 8 dollars. This may or may not be enough for one adult per day, but if you are using it as some extra nutrition it's not the worst option. Basically, in moderation it won't harm you.
It is not suggested to use it as a long term meal substitute. I would suggest that nobody ever consider living on soylent, or ensure for that matter, as their only nutrition source.
It can give you gas, but they went to a new iteration 1.6 from 1.5, and I don't know how that version fares in that regard.
Of course home-cooked fresh meals are superior, but they take time, fill up your fridge and is generally going to have more overhead costs.
I'm tired. Hopefully this is coherent and useful.
Cheers
Surprisingly, soylent isn't that terrible tasting but I found myself depressed by day 2. Its not for the faint-hearted, that's for sure. Someone somewhere has the recipe posted though, so I think you can actually make it for less than the namebrand version.
when I first researched it I saw some DIY options, but talked myself out of it when I saw numerous posts about how it gave people extreme gas :O
Congratulations ! It sounds to me as if you have the "financial" aspect of minimalism down, now to work on the "physical" aspect. I look at approaching minimalism as you would if you decided to eat more nutritionally. You don't just throw away all of your food and go to the health store. When you do go to the store just replace the junk food with better choices, in other words a little at a time.
Same with minimalism, you just decided to buy only what is needed, not on a whim or a want. Teach yourself to call things "junk you don't need" when you want to buy things you don't need. After a period of time you will not be bringing home and then stepping over "Junk" that you really don't need and all the junk becomes junk you don't want.
Good luck on that decision when you are ready to embrace it ... It is NOT easy!