A Minimalist's Guide to Entertainment

Nature's Entertainment
Source:  Flickr: Dana Le

Being a Minimalist means that I am selective about how I spend my time and energy.  However, I do have a few hobbies I enjoy greatly that require owing possessions: reading, scuba diving, surfing, and camping.  While some things can be rented, owning those items allows for a greater margin of safety and the ability to take off and do them at a moment's notice.


While entertainment, relaxation, and enjoyment are an important part of your health and personal development, some forms of entertainment can distract from what we want to accomplish and clutter our lives.

You may want to read the article The Purpose of Recreation to better understand the purposeful balance fun plays in our lives.

Hobbies that will be time and space stealers: collecting things like antiques or baseball cards, video games, or gambling.

Hobbies that sharpen your brain, provide enjoyment, and take up very little space: reading (kindle or library), chess, or photography.

Living in a technologically infested world, your options for entertainment are endless.  You can play video games with someone from China, have your wii analyze your yoga positions, or play virtual golf with a wall projector.  However, have we lost touch with simple and natural entertainment?

This past vacation I spent several hours watching a storm move across Lake Tahoe.  It was exhilarating watching the lightening break the darkness with a wrathful like vengeance.  The sound of the thunder rolling through the mountains almost made me cower in terror, as it seemed to shake the ground with sound waves.

I thought, this is what is was like a hundred years ago.  This is what people did for fun.  There was a purity to such a simple form of entertainment.  I spent many afternoons, watching the small wind driven waves hit the shore, chased after crawdads, and sat on the porch reading books.  It is times like these that we realize that a simple life can be abundantly joyful.      

Food, Water, Shelter: The Essentials for Life

Image Source: Angelo DeSantis

Food, water, and shelter are what humans need to survive.  Air and an Atmosphere could be added to that list, but on planet earth, those items are a gift to mankind.

The basics for human survival are actually quite simple.  We need about 8 glasses of fresh water, 2000-3000 calories of healthy food, and protection from the elements.  All else is either a help or a distraction.

Life is About More than Surviving

Life can be whittled down to the essentials, but life is about more than just surviving, its about thriving.  As a Minimalist, the tendency can be to cut out everything, even get a high out of cutting everything out of life, and in the end be left with nothing.  Nothing wouldn't be a bad thing, but there is nothing wrong with finding joy in anything.  The point is to cut out all non-beneficial things, and things that eat at your joy.  Just realize where your true joy comes from and don't let it all be caught up in material things. People can bring joy, faith can bring joy, and experiences can bring joy.

Living With Less Teaches You Thankfulness 

When your life in voluntarily, or involuntarily cut down to nothing, you learn to appreciate what little you do have on a very deep level.  When all of a sudden, all you have is food, water and shelter, you begin to appreciate the delicacies of life like flush toilets, coffee house lattes, and electricity.  

Image Source: Adam Inglis via Flickr 

Build From the Essentials

 As a mental exercise, strip your life down to the essentials, and then build out from there.  It's called Lifestyle Design, and it's about designing your lifestyle to achieve your goals and uphold your values.  Some people just want more time with their kids, others want to travel the world, or build orphanages.  Whatever it is, Lifestyle Design focuses on what is important in your life.   What is the bare minimum you need to choose the life you want?

Reconsider the Essentials 

So you need food, water, and shelter, but how you think about each of those items might be the key to your lifestyle design.  For your ideal lifestyle, do you need a 3500 square foot home, or just a small cottage in the woods?  Do you have to pay for municipal water, or could you collect creek water or rainfall?  Do you have to shop for your foods at major shopping centers, or can you grow your own food?  Can you trade goods you produce with your neighbors, or at a farmer's market? 

For some, growing their own food isn't an option, because their ideal lifestyle is travel.  That is fine, everyone will find their own path.  The important part is to cut out the things that are meaningless, and rejoice in the things that are meaningful in your life. 

This guy lived out of a van in the Duke University parking lot.  He walked away with a degree from Duke and no student loan debt.  Read his story here.  If you want something bad enough, no sacrifice is too big. 

Two Types of Minimalists: The Free Bird and the Farmer

Jin

Within the broader community of minimalism, two types emerge.  What connects them to minimalism is the desire to gain freedom through simple living.

The Farmer 

The farmer uses minimalism to live a simple life in the country.  Often this type of minimalist desires to be more tied down and established in one location.   The goal of the farmer is to be self-sustaining.  To live simply and work with his or her hands.  Living simply allows the farmer to be uninhibited by political or economic woes, and allows the farmer time to pursue his or her passions, like writing, photography, boat building, or other activities of interest.  

The Free Bird 

The free bird uses minimalism to lead a transient lifestyle.   Few possessions and attachments allow the free bird to flock around the world, starting online businesses, writing, meeting people from other cultures, doing work in the field of anthropology, volunteering abroad, and having the opportunity to move as the wind blows.  The free bird tends to embrace technology and harness its power, in an attempt to connect with others and provide a means of sustenance.  

Torn Between the Two 

My heart longs to be a free bird, to explore every nook and cranny of this planet, to live in exotic locales, and to meet interesting people.  I also have an intense desire to try living simply in the mountains.  I want to experience the literal fruits of my own hands.  The problem is that when you start raising chickens and growing fruit trees, you are now tied down to that area.  It become increasingly difficult to just pack up and move or travel on a dime.  

On the flip side, a lifestyle of transience makes you never feel like you have roots anywhere.  It's hard to build lasting relationships and tend to a family when you're living out of a backpack in airports.  Is there any compromise?   

Minimalism is a State of Mind

Arturo Donate

Minimalism isn't a one time movement towards simplicity, but rather a way of interacting in the world. It is both a philosophical movement and a way of life.

I believe it starts with an individual diverging from the social consumption norm.  It begins with a dissatisfaction with the lifestyle of consumerism.  It's as if the veil is torn and the minimalist sees life for what it is, apart from the facade of materialism.  The minimalist recognizes that materialism harms the individual, not increases his or her happiness.  The minimalist sees life in all of its raw beauty and accepts it.  

Then minimalism digs in deep, and the minimalist sees the futility of distraction in everything around him or her.  The minimalist has found peace in a chaotic world and wishes never to be enslaved to greed again.  It is deeply ingrained in how they keep their home, do their chores, shop for items, clear their minds, plan their schedules, balance relationships, and sustain emotional harmony. 

Happiness is light in the soul, not money in the bank.   

Minimalism and Freedom

Free Yourself
Source: Jesus Solana

My last post, The Real State of the Union, was all about the United States economy, and the holes in its ship.  What does this mean for the minimalist?

Minimalism is about cutting down to the essentials, and not desiring any extras.  Within the minimalist community, there are offshoots of Lifestyle Designers, tiny house dwellers, simple living enthusiasts, and those seeking financial independence.

 I would say that the majority of minimalists want to live small, in order to have more freedom.  Freedom is the connector to all of those communities.  Minimalism offers freedom.

Minimalism and Self-Sufficiency

Minimalists say, "Screw you" to the social order.  Minimalists see the deterioration of society at the hands of out of control consumerism.

When you are not anchored to a massive amount of possessions, you are free to move wherever you want.  No matter what the economy does, or where political unrest unleashes, the minimalist is free to move about the cabin.  When your wealth isn't tied to your possessions, then moving to another part of the country, or even across the world, can be done at the flip of a switch.

If you migrate across the world, with a backpack, working out of internet cafes, who can touch you?
If you adopt simple living, running a micro from your garage, and producing your own food, who can touch you?

On several trips out into the wild, I have had an interesting thought, what if World War 3 broke out while I was gone?  What if the stock market crashed?  What if the President was comprised?  Out there, there would be no way of knowing.  Can I even say, that out there, it wouldn't matter.

When you live self-sufficiently, you can choose what parts of society affect you.  Not all parts of it are bad.  There are great social programs that help with disaster relief, housing for orphans, and basic safety standards.  Society can offer some great benefits to the individual, but you shouldn't ever rely on them, because they are fallible.

Utlimately, you are responsible for your own health, wealth, safety, and happiness.  Become a minimalist, and free yourself.

Let's Be Unmodern

Image Source:  Flickr: epSos.de. CC-BY-2.0

Does anyone else feel that modern society is so unnatural?

Sitting in traffic for four hours a day.
Wearing fancy clothes to impress people you don't like.
Eating food that doesn't resemble anything that came out of the dirt.
Walking all day on concrete without a tree in sight.

I just don't know how to interact in this world we've created.  I don't like how we fill our lives with so much busy unhappiness and feel so disconnected to each other.

What is the solution?  Disconnect?  It's hard to have one foot in the modern world and one foot in the simple one.  They are at war with each other on an ideological level.

Living Like a Refugee

Naked we come into this world and naked we leave, but somehow we seem to accumulate ridiculous amounts of stuff in between.  

Periodically, I have to review the reasons and methods behind minimalism.  I am fully convinced that living more simply leads to a more satisfying life, but I often begin reverting back to accumulating without even knowing it.  A few receipts get stashed in my purse, a new outfit enters the closet and no items leave, a book is picked up at a garage sale, and pretty soon I'm feeling like a lousy minimalist.

With every wave of becoming more of a minimalist I'm getting smaller and finding more efficient ways to do or display things.  How can I make a book shelf look uncluttered?  What do I do with bills? Do I digitize CD's? How do I file important paperwork? 

I'm beginning to see minimalism as more of a process than a one time possession chucking party.  

My fear now is what is at the end.  What happens when there is no more to get rid of?  What does it feel like to be truly naked?  I'm actually a bit scared. 

Who am I apart from my stuff?  Can I honestly feel confident in an independent identity?  

If I had nothing, like a new born baby, would  my tastes change?  Would I have a social class?  What defines class other than possessions?  I would be like a refugee fleeing in the night with nothing but the clothes on my back. 

You have to wonder what that feels like.