I've been thinking a lot about minimalism lately. It is fascinating to me, someone with a wealth of things, to consider life without those things around me.
Just existing in a bare, stark place, a sterile space with few, if any, visual distractions from the thoughts in your head and the task at hand sounds almost zen-like.
The closest that I can think I've ever come to this was when I moved into my current place. I carried just the few things that I thought that I would need to set myself up, and all of them fit easily into my little old car.
Because they all fit into two suitcases.
Those suitcases contained a wealth of supplies that had both practical and sentimental value to me. Things I had purchased, or were given to me by family and friends, and were sure to be important to me as time went forward.
Of course, I threw myself into the fray, and acquired many more things: clothes, furnishings, appliances, tools, all kinds of stuff. But I still think that if I was in a situation where I needed to, I could pare all of it down to those two suitcases, and still be okay.
My life is like a tree, in a sense, with a great deal of mass, but only a small fraction of it is alive. The rest is dead weight, but the living part is currently dependent on the rest for support. The trick of minimalist living is to remove as much of that dead weight as you can, and then teaching the living part to stand on its own.
To understand this, all I have to do is think back to when I carried those suitcases, the seeds of my current lifestyle.
This was published online at http://www.bubblews.com/news/9432004-carrying-a-seed-for-the-tree-of-your-life
No comments:
Post a Comment