Minimalism

In a world of excess and constant sensory overload, minimalism is becoming increasingly important. But what does it really mean to live a minimalist lifestyle? Is it just a trend or can it lead to profound social change? Let's explore these questions together and maybe even change our lives a little.

The essence of minimalism

Cleaning up and decluttering everything that is important to me and the yogic concentration on the essentials have given me a lot of confidence and energy. It feels wonderful to live this relaxed rainbow contentment in which I drift along imperfectly perfectly, with a certain charm without an umbrella and bowler hat. Because it is reduced.

Minimalism as a path to sustainability

It removes the greed from the waste of common resources. Somehow, of course, all of this happened; if you rush into something too emotionally, it is often over sooner than you would like. So it was only over the years that I learned what I consider to be a sustainable concept for the future, not just subjectively.

Minimalism does not mean outdoing each other in not owning anything or owning a fixed number of things. I advocate it more as a contribution to the health of the world, and there is also great mindfulness and understanding hidden in voluntary renunciation. This mindfulness grows with you.

Fun fact: A UCLA study found that women's cortisol levels (our stress hormone) were directly correlated with the amount of stuff they had in their home. So, less clutter = less stress.

Global Perspectives on Minimalism

Whether in the practical here and now, in Sherwood Forest or another secret society, avid readers will know more, in this context, taking advantage of the global inequality gap is also a welcome change. For example, working in Switzerland for a month and using the earnings to live and love in Nepal for half a year without missing out on important things for yourself and your daily needs. So there is no need for fanaticism, there are wonderful add-ons for our new operating system.

New study from the World Bank: If we reduced global resource consumption by 25%, we could reduce extreme poverty by 50%. Boom! Minimalism as a world savior, who would have thought?

At the same time, you increase and decrease economic conditions. Organized in circles and tribes, you get shared trekking equipment, live in a nice co-living house in Kathmandu and invest the energy released in supporting the poorest Nepalese, without middlemen, the famous supply chain thefts, about which there will be much to write, talk and judge.

Rethinking minimalism

This act of life is not anti-consumer or interested in hopeless capitalism revolt, but simply lives a style with a few overlaps that can heal the planet and the biosphere.

It doesn't necessarily have to be overly nomadic, as I sometimes portray it; that's a personal preference. But our nations and their borders, which are ultimately based on greed and the inequality of property and its distribution, are artificial and fictional. So we are, in our minds, inhabitants of one planet and can go wherever we want, if we want. Leaving aside the axes of evil.

A regional, local, open demarcation of borders between different communities may well be sensible and natural, especially since it is now possible with the help of technology and collective self-organization. But back to the minimal.

Neuroscientists have discovered that too many choices overload our brains. The more stuff we have, the harder it is to decide. Minimalism is like a brain upgrade - less input, more output!

The personal journey to minimalism

As a buzzword and label, it is simply part of the change philosophy/technology. I myself cannot name a precise point of transition; the thing, the matter itself, does not mean all that much to me. As much as I devote myself to my six-year-old Xbox One, and could no longer exchange my red Converse, I find the majority of the world of things to be insignificant.

That means I honor beauty, but recognize its transience and interchangeability in a consumer society that I only participate in and belong to from the edge of my plate. My life is organized into a few suitcases and boxes.

The things in my private world are mostly refurbished or, in the case of the bed, DIY from Euro pallets. All the many books and media lying around here are borrowed from the collections of the local libraries, which I sing the praises of in many places and see as potential allies in an even more extensive share & care culture.

Challenges and opportunities

What many of them could and do have in common is a counter-culture problem that is often ignored: the aforementioned invisibility, the natural inability to promote and present contrary values. To allow the meaningful to grow with the meaningless. People bask too much in the success of their own goodness, and lose sight of the realistic necessities.

In the next generations, this will slowly disappear. Patience is a strength in minimalism. Cutting back can also mean waiting for opportunities. Perhaps what you want will only be available in a while, but does it really matter if you have to wait two months for a gadget in the share circle?

On the other hand, if people gain easier access to diversity through shared participation, to things that once seemed unattainable, they will be better able to recognize what really counts. There will certainly always be someone for whom this will not be enough. But that is an issue that requires a different solution.

I'm trying to unravel something new from these fragments, collaborations, concepts, a big thing that would also be possible. A future free of filter bubbles. Yes, exciting neuroses of life are slowly crystallizing.

A path to a sustainable future

As I feel right now in the midst of my green tea rush, the trap of property and the marketing-driven throwaway culture, the excesses of which have led to modern capitalism and neoliberalism and its problems, seems to me to be changeable in the same way that it began its triumphant advance over decades and centuries. With storytelling, fictions that simply have to be repeated so often until they stick as true and are spread and disseminated by those arrested to their children and those around them.

Minimalism needs the more casual reframe mentioned above. And not just a decadent Netflix series with a pretty front girl. What it definitely doesn't need is the start-up culture of the greedies. In fact, it just revives what we humans should do instead of surrendering to commerce.

Let’s let Marx back into the action

We cannot avoid many ideas from the truly left-wing flair, but it requires more skill and updates of this thinking and these philosophies. Minimalism and the ideas of Marx have more in common than one would think at first glance. Both strive for a fairer, more sustainable and more conscious society. At least that is how one could interpret it

Minimalism calls us to own less and live more, and offers a perspective that complements Marx's thinking. People who get used to this change on a small scale love clear images and simple constructs on a large scale, such as the unconditional basic income, a significantly higher minimum wage, taxes on the rich and polluter levies. These concepts could help us to create a more sustainable and fairer society.

An unconditional basic income could encourage people to focus on essentials and reduce consumption. Taxes on the rich and polluter levies could help distribute resources more fairly and protect the environment by punishing excessive consumption and waste.

But to successfully implement these concepts, we need innovative approaches and strong political willpower. It's about overcoming old patterns of thinking and taking new paths. We need to question power structures and redesign society from the ground up. This process requires courage, perseverance and the willingness to accept radical change.

Minimalism can play a key role here. By limiting ourselves to the essentials, we create space for new ideas and solutions. Giving up excess and concentrating on the essentials can help us create a more sustainable and fairer world. Marx's ideas offer valuable guidance in this context, but they need to be modernized and adapted to today's challenges.

Conclusion: A new perspective

We still need a few small things to get there. It is easy to be flexible when you travel light. But moving around as a world citizen in a world of corsets is still relatively complicated.

But perhaps our natural instinct is more trustworthy than is often made out to be. In the basic units, the (chosen) families and tribes, the crazy ones were not ostracized, they were rather honored, and the assholes were easier to identify.

I love my 2-euro sunglasses, the free money movement, the Maphrodavne that I'll drink with a Cheshire cat later. Looking for a trailer park.

Yes, that's how the threads run from post to post, blogs to books and back again. Sometimes my innermost designer comes before and after the bewildered ME.

It is a complex matter of being simple these days. A nudge or two would probably do no harm to those who are interested. Advice and mentorship in premium or sign up for my workshops or coaching.

And no thanks to past eras. We don't give a shit about history, which was always and everywhere based on the exploitation of other people and living beings. Without exception. We don't assume that the history of the false victors should be continued because something different, better, easy and joyful instead of painful is now possible.

Thank you for your attention. I'm going to bake brownies for my sweetheart now.