Tag: minimalism

Ultra Minimalists, Part 1

~ George Crawford

Learning a thing or two from the past…Part 1, 21st century americans are not the first to minimalize.

kylixdonkey
How much stuff do we really need to lug through life?

This is a lengthy ramble.  So long in fact, that I have broken it into several posts to be trickled out over the coming days, weeks, or months.  Skip on to the fun stuff if you aren’t interested in Minimalist* philosophy.  There’s a lot of recent talk about Minimalism as a social movement.  Not long ago, it was associated with artists and aesthetes, wanderers, mystics, and philosophers.  That is to say, the fringe element, outsiders, and weirdos.  These things come in cycles and I think, as a backlash against generations of sell-out philosophy and the creation of a professional consumer class, many people are reaching for something new.

We come to learn that everything old is new again.

I’ve been looking into history and prehistory on a full-time basis for many decades now.  As hard to believe as it may be, I even get paid a salary to do it.  One of my professional interests involves tools, tool-kits, and strategies for surviving that various people have come up with for dealing with the world.  As a primitive skills-survival instructor and full-time frugalist I think it important to not reinvent a lifeway when we have millennia of ancestors who dealt with most of the same issues we do today.

San
A San bushman demonstrating fire-making.  Ostrich egg canteen in the foreground.

For most humans, for most of our history, owning too much stuff has never really been an issue.  We had what we needed and either made what we needed or did without the things we didn’t have.  It brings a smile to my face to know that more than 2,400 years ago, well-to-do people in China, India, and the Middle East were contemplating the nature and evils of acquiring Stuff; even writing about it.  That’s not to say that I have immediate plans to become a wandering mendicant like a medieval friar (as appealing as that might sound to some) but I do have an interest in lightening my material load and some very specific goals for the coming year.

mendicant

My foundation as a minimalist – I have been thinking about what stuff a person needs to survive since I was a teenager.  Like virtually every young boy, I had grand ideas of escaping the family and traveling unhindered across the world.  I devoured Jack London and Mark Twain stories as a kid.  I loved the extensive and well-thought out gear lists provided in the Boy Scout Handbook, the Explorer’s Handbook, and the Philmont Guides.  I read Larry Dean Olsen’s great book of Outdoor Survival Skills and Colin Fletcher’s The Complete Walker.  I read about the mountain men of the fur trade, and always, took note of what they carried or didn’t seem to need.  I would copy lists into a notebook and ponder them while sitting in some boring high school class, making my own lists of what I have, what I need, and what I want.  This thinking encouraged me to work and save money to buy a better knife, backpack, or stove.  I was probably the only kid I knew who wanted, and got, a file and whetstone for Christmas one year (my grandpa was good that way).  My friends and I spent our teens and early twenties hiking and camping year round, mostly in the woods of the Ozarks in southern Missouri testing our mettle at that time in life time when all teenagers know they are invincible.  Some of us even made it to Europe, Asia, Africa, and beyond.

BooksIn a modern sense of survivalist, many people look to the military or the loonies of teh mainstream media.  Often, military service is the time when young men and women are introduced to such things for the first and only time.  Realistically however, the military itself acknowledges it’s shortcomings on a personal basis as (with the exception of a few special operations units) its entire system is dependent on lengthy and complex supply lines, support chains, and de-emphasis of the individual and personal decision making.  Military survival is therefore, approached as a means of keeping alive until help arrives.  Great for fighting a war, but not always so good when you are turned loose into the world.

Coming up next…Ultra Minimalists Part2.   Let’s look at a military example anyway: Romans.

legionary

* here are a few links to modern Minimalists of various ilks and philosophical merit.  A journey through these links will hint at the breadth and depth of people on different paths but moving in the same direction.

Read, research, think, and enjoy!

Go to Part 2

Minimalism

~ George Crawford ~ 6 Comments

huck-finn (1)

“I make myself rich by making my wants few.”

— Henry David Thoreau

For thousands of years, great minds have warned us against the acquisition of “Stuff”.  The more stuff we have, the more we’re obsessed with newer, better, more interesting stuff.  For about six or seven years now, I have been eliminating extraneous possessions; since before I had even heard of the Minimalist philosophy.  Long ago, I realized that possession and the grasping for possessions is a serious root of much of the world’s evil.  Greed drives our government.  Greed drives the whole crazy idea of banking; not the idea of doing something good or worthwhile, or even making ourselves happy or free.  Making money, buying junk, and paying to be entertained. This unholy trinity is the basis for most people’s lives and I don’t want to participate in that.

By most American’s standards, I own very little, but the next few months will see a serious change and a move toward absolute minimalism.  I’m posting this here to maybe inspire a few others to think about their possessions, what holds you down, and what makes you happy.  Every possession is an anchor.

 

Update to the Little Yellow House

~ George Crawford ~ Leave a comment

Another update from Kent Griswold’s website, The Tiny House Blog.  This is arguably the cutest house in America, built by Ella Jenkins at the the Little Yellow Door website.  Just over a year ago she made the big move into a small space and seems to be doing better than ever.

DSC_0012-Version-2Ella is a posterchild for tiny house living and it shows in her wonderful house and minimalist life.

DSC_0243DSC_0135DSC_0102So, if you love tiny homes and have a few minutes, check out her update on the Tiny House Blog.  If you missed the earlier post with short video, check it out here.  And finally, her own blog, telling a bit about her journey can be found here.

Does This Thingy Add Value…

~ George Crawford ~ 1 Comment

A new post from the Minimalists.

“I don’t own many things. But everything I own adds value to my life.

Each of my belongings—my kitchenware, furniture, clothes, car—functions either as a tool or gives some sort of positive aesthetic value to my life. That is, as a minimalist, every possession serves a purpose and/or brings me joy.

Over time, though, situations’ll change. They always do. And so I’m forced to ask the same important question over and over and over again: Does this thing add value to my life?

And but it’s not just material possessions at which I posit this query. I ask it, too, in regard to relationships, social media, and any other potentially superfluous matters in life” emphasis added.

Good things to ponder as we just absorb everything, new and old, around us.

Read the whole post here or, better yet, check out their other writings:

http://www.theminimalists.com/

Lightening my load

~ George Crawford ~ 10 Comments

About an addiction I didn’t even realize I had.

BOOKS. A hidden addiction.

It seems that minimalism is the word du jour around the internet these days.  Tiny houses, the 100 Thing Challenge, Non-Conformist work strategies, and urban homesteaders are filling blog-space with ideas and adventures outside the old consumerist norm.  Many people are looking for something more in their lives and realizing that Stuff is not the answer.  There is often an epiphany in someone’s life when they come to the realization that humans are not just professional consumers or targets for marketing strategies.  Shopping is not a valid pastime.  Hopefully there is more to our short existence than reality TV.  Having lived without regular television for quite a few years I feel very lucky to miss out on political soundbites, sit-coms, and mass marketing of sports-watching.  Unfortunately, even with my relative isolation, I know about these things from reading the news on the Internet almost daily.

Choosing to not buy into most popular-culture lightens my mental load a lot and (hopefully) allows time for deeper and more elevated thinking as well as crafting a better life.  Daily walks, exercise, building things, cooking good food, and reading make for a calmer mind and a lower stress level.  These are intentional activities not the imposed sedation of consumer culture.

When I had to leave Flagstaff about eight years ago, I began uncluttering my belongings.  I don’t think of myself as a collector, but I had amassed an enormous library of books.  This is what people on an academic path do … right?  Who did I think I was?  Some nineteenth-century English aristocrat?  Why would I possibly need a personal library?  It hit me one day that this was crazy.  I have hauled books around since I was a teenager until it became truckloads to move while nearly always living within twenty minutes of a large, academic library.

Sure, as a person who researches writes for work there are certain references and sources I need to have on hand and could not adequately perform my job without, but I had fallen into the trap of keeping books around “just in case” I wanted them again.  That’s not to say that there aren’t recreational books I would never want to be without and I hope to read or reference many more times before I die.

I was able to sell a fair number of books and make a few dollars from them but, in the end, found that there isn’t a high monetary value on most books.  These I gave away.  I gave away even more to the local library and to the Goodwill store.  I still have far too many books, but now its really just the one’s I love or have a need for.  The ones I may not need but can’t quite part with are: a few rare antiques, first editions, special editions, and expensive academic tomes.

I’m still giving away books but I’m still buying them as well.  Being far from a real bookstore actually makes it easier, not harder, to shop, read reviews, preview and purchase books.  Without getting up I can order a book and expect it in my post office box in a week.  Such is the Amazon.com culture.

I still read voraciously, but now, when considering a book, I really try to consider how much I want to own it and do I want to lug it around? Another anchor holding me down.  Can my local library get it?  This has been a difficult addiction to overcome.  I’ve bought books since I was fourteen and, on some level, prided myself on having such an extensive collection at my fingertips.  It felt good to put another dozen or so hardbacks in my Goodwill box this morning.  Just a few hundred more to let go (but a few more are on their way to my post office).