The Case Against Minimalism: When It's Good to Want More

[Ultralight]

http://greatist.com/live/minimalist-living-the-case-against-it

This is written by a "millennial."

I am curious other's thoughts on it?

[iris lilies]

This quote shows that shes got "minimalism" wrong:



...to bow down to fear. While I am against blind consumption, I am also against the idea that we should make our lives as small as possible, to never strive, to stop dreaming of impact and change...


since when did minimalism mean no dreams, no,work for change?

this is just the usual clickbait where a freelsnce journalist takes an idea, simplifies it to the point of absurdity then rails against it. That is the clickbait formula.

[catherine]

This quote shows that shes got "minimalism" wrong:



...to bow down to fear. While I am against blind consumption, I am also against the idea that we should make our lives as small as possible, to never strive, to stop dreaming of impact and change...


since when did minimalism mean no dreams, no,work for change?

this is just the usual clickbait where a freelsnce journalist takes an idea, simplifies it to the point of absurdity then rails against it. That is the clickbait formula.

I agree completely. I thought her argument was specious. So, just because you are trying to minimize you are not ambitious? I think it takes a certain amount of ambition to align your patterns of consumption with your values if you have simple living aspirations--in fact, it takes a lot of determination and ambition. Also, her trophies of success seem to be tangible--"nice stuff" in other words. In order to measure her success, her yardsticks are material things, which as we all know, just doesn't have to be. Our yardsticks are personal peace and fulfillment, community and financial independence. She apparently misses that boat.

This makes no sense to me:

While I thought simplicity and less expectations and less desire would bring me more gratefulness, all it really did was leave me nothing to look forward to, nothing at all ahead in my life to work toward.

So, so counterintuitive. Why not work toward things that matter? Why not be grateful for all the simple pleasures that abound? Plus, her grammatically incorrect use of "less" in "less expectations" annoys me.

Those are just my initial thoughts.

[LDAHL]

Ah, the philosophical musings of someone who's been alive about fifteen minutes. Man does not live by bread alone. He also needs money for tattoos and train tickets to live a Big Life. We shouldn't be counting spoons and staring at trees when we could be making Meaningful Change to achieve a society that provides us with free tattoos and train tickets.

[Mary B.]

Ah, the philosophical musings of someone who's been alive about fifteen minutes. Man does not live by bread alone. He also needs money for tattoos and train tickets to live a Big Life. We shouldn't be counting spoons and staring at trees when we could be making Meaningful Change to achieve a society that provides us with free tattoos and train tickets.

Wait... there's a movement towards free tattoos? How did I miss this? :~)

[LDAHL]

Wait... there's a movement towards free tattoos? How did I miss this? :~)

It's a basic human right!

[Ultralight]

It's a basic human right!

There is a religion that makes tattoos their main thing. So you could said it is a religious right too.

[ApatheticNoMore]

Wait... there's a movement towards free tattoos? How did I miss this?

nah that comment was even more off topic than the original link, which was pretty all over the place.

But anyway about the link itself:

1) Ambition itself is deeply problematic:

I don't even know that I agree with ambition. Possessions aren't ambition, but perhaps I even reject ambition, so I think I don't agree with ANY of the article overall and reject it all at a much more fundamental level.

Youth is hubris-tic, age tempers, it's known and it's true, and the losses of age and the need to accept that it is all bigger than your personal self, tempers and shocks.

Both excessive ambition and lack of all ambition can be psychologically problematic. Excessive ambition can be excessive need to prove oneself or to be better than others. I doubt this is really healthy and it quite often stems from deep insecurities (it's the insecurity/superiority two step thing described by many classical psychologists - See Alfred Adler etc. - and his ideal was certainly not ambition it was a pro-social human being.). Lack of all ambition can also stem from insecurity. Certainly if one doesn't even try for ordinary things that are quite potentially in one's grasp it's probably insecurity. But the need for greatness for greatness sake, rather than say it just happening once in a rare while, out of interest in one's subject matter etc. - many have suspected that is pathological.

2) Possessions aren't ambition

She's drunk the koolaid and doesn't even know it. Possessions are riches are ambition are success. I don't accept a single one of those equivalencies. Possessions != wealth. Wealth may equal ambition (for wealth which is often a very ugly thing) but ambition (for other things in life of greater value) != wealth. Success != necessarily equal ambition


But I look at greatness and I wonder if the greatest thinkers and innovators would have amassed their influence had they tampered down their desire, their ambition, their hunger for something larger than simple pleasures.

sometimes I think of Kant taking his walk, with perfect regularity (or such is the myth), and long for it ...


I think it's completely OK to want things, to chase after experiences beyond sitting in nature staring at a tree.

How much one likes it maybe depends on introversion. One wonders if Darwin just noticed (yea I know he was trained and all that of course as well). Or one thinks of Thoreau.

I guess if one's minimalism was born of reading bad job reports and BLS stats and about homelessness all the time, then it might be born of fear, although I've got to say a fairly rational fear. If we are doing ok financially now, there is certainly no guarantee we will be tomorrow (unless we are quite rich), but excessive focus on that could indeed be harmful. I think it's a subcase of a MUCH MORE general principle: excessive focus on money is harmful.


When minimalism and the pursuit of simple turns into a weird competition of who can want the least, the point has been missed.

I don't disagree with that part.

[jp1]

Wait... there's a movement towards free tattoos? How did I miss this? :~)

There may become one if Trump becomes president. At least for Muslims and immigrants...

[Alan]

There may become one if Trump becomes president. At least for Muslims and immigrants...That sort of thing is typically the result of socialist leaders. Let history be your guide.

[SteveinMN]

I am curious other's thoughts on it?
I am curious as to your thoughts on it.

Plopping down a link without any commentary is ... Well, something about the article struck you enough to post about it here. What was it? Why not share those thoughts with us?

[Ultralight]

I am curious as to your thoughts on it.

Plopping down a link without any commentary is ... Well, something about the article struck you enough to post about it here. What was it? Why not share those thoughts with us?

I feel as though much of what I would say has already been said.

I think the author misses the point, mostly.

[Tammy]

Some people feel anxiety related to boredom when they downsize their lives. As if they are addicted to being busy. I wonder if the author is in that stage of the journey. She wrote as though she was missing a purpose to her life. When the busy stuff leaves us, we can be in a place of wondering "what's the point?" But we need the boredom to have time to think about that question.

[iris lilies]

Some people feel anxiety related to boredom when they downsize their lives. As if they are addicted to being busy. I wonder if the author is in that stage of the journey. She wrote as though she was missing a purpose to her life. When the busy stuff leaves us, we can be in a place of wondering "what's the point?" But we need the boredom to have time to think about that question.
This is true. Good post.

[Ultralight]

Some people feel anxiety related to boredom when they downsize their lives. As if they are addicted to being busy. I wonder if the author is in that stage of the journey. She wrote as though she was missing a purpose to her life. When the busy stuff leaves us, we can be in a place of wondering "what's the point?" But we need the boredom to have time to think about that question.

I have felt that way, but I sort of knew (know?) it can be attributed to other things.

[RoseQuartz]

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[Ultralight]

She wants to experience "physical success" haha? What? What is that?

After reading, I clicked on the tab at the bottom of the article to see her instagram (full disclosure I don't have an instagram, but find instagram fascinating for personality study) to get a better idea of where she's coming from and saw lots of quotes and pictures of her face, and her feet, and her stuff, and pretty much a familiar variation of full blown narcissistic hipsterism in motion. Her Twitter was disappointing too. Talking/writing just to hear yourself is pointless.

I don't agree with her in the article, and I think she's pontificating about nothing. Minimalism is nothing like what she thinks it is. Perhaps she's afraid to be a minimalist because she feels her life would become dull without new outfits and hairdos and new lipsticks to share? I got the feeling that she's afraid of a world without superficiality. Who would you be without the stuff? What would you say if you couldn't post other people's words and quotes? What are YOU contributing? Perhaps that's her real fear, that she has no original content, or thoughts unrelated to "physical success"?

The trouble I see with millennials, though I'd cast that net to include a lot the the blogger self help gurus, is that they've bought the notion that sharing and creating content online automatically equates to being a writer or whatever label they've assigned themselves. I guess this creating content for no purpose and all the uber sharing for me is ultimately disappointing because it's mostly meaningless. It's navel gazing. It's boring.

Anyway, yeah she's off her rocker as far as minimalism goes.

Her life probably would be boring without stuff.

But suppose she is a tip of the iceberg. The Millennials were supposedly not interested in stuff.

But if they now are becoming interested in physical success they will likely find there ain't enough stuff to go around or that they are baristas without the means to buy the physical success.

[RoseQuartz]

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[ApatheticNoMore]

She wants to experience "physical success" haha? What? What is that?

I know and is it something experienced in bed? :) She has a very conventional viewpiont in many ways but has very unusual word choices like "physical success" to express it


I don't agree with her in the article, and I think she's pontificating about nothing.

pretty much. And contrary to being criticized for wanting free tattoos, she is definitely not advocating activism (as in we should dream big about changing the world). If she was the article wouldn't read like it did, without a single concrete anything. If an activist even got thrown into her "greatness" musings ("I want to be great like MLK" or something) it would just be among a grab bag of random "greatness" (and great like Hemingway and great like Madonna and great like Obama ....) and really I think is very far from her focus in life (what is it all about and what does she want? not sure, I think maybe to travel and buy a bunch of stuff).

[Ultralight]

Millennials want stuff, they just want really nice stuff- less of it and higher quality. Status items are still a thing even with the minimalist millennials. If they were really pulling a collective Thoreau we'd hear a deafening silence. What I see and hear is "Here's how I've optimized my life and blah blah blah."

I remember reading a favorite minimalist blogger justifying every single iPhone update, and why she "needed" the newest model. She shouldn't have to justify it, but because she'd built her "brand" (can't we just be people?) around being environmentally conscious and a minimalist she knew it wouldn't jive with her readers....yet she seems to have lost no love, and has gotten book deals.

Is it your belief that stuff is going to become scarce and millennials are in for a rude awakening fiscally? And if yes, how? I don't see stuff becoming scarce. I'm curious why you say that.

Well, if every millennial wants a mazerati I doubt they are going to be able to afford it bagging groceries at Whole Foods.

Is stuff going to become scarce? LOL

Not in my lifetime!

Who was your favorite mini-blogger?

[RoseQuartz]

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[Ultralight]

ApatheticNoMore, yes that's exactly how I felt reading it.

And UA, I don't want to out the person in case they are a member. :D

Oh, the intrigue!

[iris lilies]

Well, if every millennial wants a mazerati I doubt they are going to be able to afford it bagging groceries at Whole Foods.

Is stuff going to become scarce? LOL

Not in my lifetime!

Who was your favorite mini-blogger?

My favorite internet famous person is Jenna Andersen. I hate read daily. She is a trip.

[Ultralight]

My favorite internet famous person is Jenna Andersen. I hate read daily. She is a trip.

Is she SFW?

[LDAHL]

I realize that not all "millenials" are "hipsters" and vice versa; the first term being a fairly crude demographic category and the second a sort of cultural identity. But how is "hipster" defined, exactly? It has the appearance of being someone so eager to be identified as out of what they regard as the cultural mainstream as to adopt a different set of material trappings and attitudes. Are they just Bobos with lower credit scores and diminished career prospects? Is it one of those vaguely artistic subcultures that spring up from time to time, or is it more of a fashion trend with philosophical pretensions? Or is it just another way people of a certain age have come up with to announce their bohemianism to the world?

[Ultralight]

I realize that not all "millenials" are "hipsters" and vice versa; the first term being a fairly crude demographic category and the second a sort of cultural identity. But how is "hipster" defined, exactly? It has the appearance of being someone so eager to be identified as out of what they regard as the cultural mainstream as to adopt a different set of material trappings and attitudes. Are they just Bobos with lower credit scores and diminished career prospects? Is it one of those vaguely artistic subcultures that spring up from time to time, or is it more of a fashion trend with philosophical pretensions? Or is it just another way people of a certain age have come up with to announce their bohemianism to the world?

Have you tried a google image search?

[RoseQuartz]

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[LDAHL]

Have you tried a google image search?

I guess I was curious about not so much what they look like as what they think. Here in Wisconsin, the guys in lumberjack attire tend to be mere lumberjacks; except perhaps in the more tragically hip and earnestly ironic precincts of Madison and Milwaukee.

[iris lilies]

Is she SFW?
Sure, she is boring and wont blow up your computer. She is the purest examof blogger narcissism that exists.

[Ultralight]

This her?
http://www.jennaandersen.com/

[RoseQuartz]

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[RoseQuartz]

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[Ultralight]

She seems like a no talent ass-clown.

[Ultralight]

I had a blog once. It made me feel vain and kind of sleazy. But I never made money on it. I did have a small following of dedicated readers. I blogged for 26 months. It was about traditional skills, fishing, and some thoughts on how civilization sucks.

But I just couldn't shake how vain it felt -- Ultralite is doing this or doing that and looking all cool! lol

Blah.

Same for Facebook.

[RoseQuartz]

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[ApatheticNoMore]

I had a blog, a few followers, never made or spent a cent on it and never expected to. What I'd do a blog for is if there was something I somehow was motivated to learn anyway and wanted to blog about a certain subject, I do a blog on that. But money no, no hopes of that. A dead end job is a more honest way to make money than a lot of that stuff.

The hipster people sound alright though from the description, unlike profiteering bloggers which does seem a bit distasteful, if all they are after is catching the sun streaming through the trees at the right hour they sound cool to me.

[LDAHL]

Our hipsters do hipster activities. Like taking an iPhone and some artisanal microbrews out into the forest, casually capturing some basket weaving on a plaid blanket, or an earnest read of some Emerson on a Pendleton blanket, but only if the suns streaming through the trees at the golden hour.

So would it be safe to call hipsterism a sort of lifestyle movement that substitutes it's own version of status anxiety for that of the culture at large so it can consider itself to have transcended the idea of status?

[iris lilies]

This her?
http://www.jennaandersen.com/
That's one of her many sites. These days she is Living Absolutely but she used to be That Wife and as That Wife she developed a following of "haters" as she calls them. She has tried to be a professional photographer for a decade and her photos populate other websites. She does Snapchat daily, Instagram with many accounts, and Facebook with several accounts.

Her lack of true self reflection has shown her to be over the years a true narcissist, and likely mentally ill in other ways.

Anyway, I dont expect anyone to find her interested ng wiout knowing her backstory.

[Ultralight]

That's one of her many sites. These days she is Living Absolutely but she used to be That Wife and as That Wife she developed a following of "haters" as she calls them. She has tried to be a professional photographer for a decade and her photos populate other websites. She does Snapchat daily, Instagram with many accounts, and Facebook with several accounts.

Her lack of true self reflection has shown her to be over the years a true narcissist, and likely mentally ill in other ways.

Anyway, I dont expect anyone to find her interested ng wiout knowing her backstory.

More backstory please. I am intrigued.

[iris lilies]

More backstory please. I am intrigued.

More backstory please. I am intrigued.

Brief Jenna highlights: she convinced her husband to marry her with a
Power Point presentation, dropping out of college to follow her then boyfriend out of state. She was a Morman who was desperate to get married, then immediately following she was deperate to conceive ("pink pill of death" posts is one of her most famous.) Her family, friends, and husband counseled her to wait to have kids but Jenna is Always Right about everything and she knew best. She is very preachy.

After a long period of preparation for natural childbirth, probably the most focused work she has ever done in her life, and during which she wrote a controversial blog post admonishing women who took the easy way out with non-natural methods, she had her first child. Almost immediately she became bored with him, scolding him for not playing with toys "properly" , getting angry with him for interrupting her time on the Internet. So she triple diapered him and stuck him in their spare bathroom with a white noise machine. He had speech delays likely due to her lack of attention. Her husband has a high powered tech career and works 80 hours a week and travels extensively with work, he is seldom around, but he provides a big paycheck. She popped out another kid before she declared herself DONE with motherhood and Mormanism.

That led to her embracing feminism, sexual openness, drinking alcohol, and smoking weed. There is pretty good evidence that she is trolling for male and female sexual partners in an OK Cupid account. All of that is fine except that she constantly blames "the patriarchy" for her woes and those of society, all the while her husband's salary goes to full time child care for their children. She lives a privileged life from her husband's support, and I suspect that her parents feed her money, too. At one point she had childcare help in the morning to dress her children, then they went to care all day, and they had a "nanny" some evenings.

This woman doesnt have a job. She managed to dick around on the internet and with a few paying photography gigs for enough years to pass herself off to her friends and family as having paying websites ( a famous post where she mixes up net profit and gross profit showed otherwise) but her husband called her on the bottom line of these financial endeavors, and she no longer presents herself as a internet businesswoman.

She is internet gold snark because she never learns from mistakes and she loves lecturing everyone about societal problems. She is addicted to her own presence on the internet, and she has set up several sitatuons to provoke clicks (photo of her children playng with her vibrator, for instance,.)

Her main fame comes from the shoddy way she treats her children and her addiction to internet fame. She is dispised for both.

I am thankful every day that Jenna doesnt have a dog.

[catherine]

Wow. What people will do for their 15 minutes of fame.

[Ultralight]

How do you know all this about her?

[LDAHL]

Wow. What people will do for their 15 minutes of fame.

Future historians will refer to this as the Kardashian Era.

[Ultralight]

LDAHL:

I lament the Kardashian Era too. What the heck is wrong with people?!?!

[iris lilies]

How do you know all this about her?
dude, she puts it all openly out there on the web, except for her OK Cupid Account and that may or may not be hers, but it seems likely it belongs to her.

She is internet famous. Lately she has been Snapchatting a lot which of course disappears after 24 hours, so we have fewer Jenna archives now than in previous years.

[Ultralight]

dude, she puts it all openly out there on the web, except for her OK Cupid Account and that may or may not be hers, but it seems likely it belongs to her.

She is internet famous. Lately she has been Snapchatting a lot which of course disappears after 24 hours, so we have less of a Jenna now than in previous years.

I did not find much of the stuff that you talked about when I googled her, though I did not look too deep.

If what you say about her is true then she is:
1. Seriously mentally ill
2. Strikingly similar to so many of my ex-girlfriends!

[catherine]

Almost immediately she became bored with him, scolding him for not playing with toys "properly" , getting angry with him for interrupting her time on the Internet. So she triple diapered him and stuck him in their spare bathroom with a white noise machine.

...

I am thankful every day that Jenna doesnt have a dog.

This reminds me of a very self-absorbed couple we knew. They would comment on how happy and well-adjusted our kids were compared with their sullen, problematic son. We were shocked when they used to go on vacation and leave the kid AT HOME but take THE DOG! When they asked us what our secret was, it was all we could do to not say "try treating the kid better than you treat the dog."

[Ultralight]

This reminds me of a very self-absorbed couple we knew. They would comment on how happy and well-adjusted our kids were compared with their sullen, problematic son. We were shocked when they used to go on vacation and leave the kid AT HOME but take THE DOG! When they asked us what our secret was, it was all we could do to not say "try treating the kid better than you treat the dog."

Another reason we should reconsider the whole idea of "reproductive rights." sad-LOL

[iris lilies]

I did not find much of the stuff that you talked about when I googled her, though I did not look too deep.

If what you say about her is true then she is:
1. Seriously mentally ill
2. Strikingly similar to so many of my ex-girlfriends!

She HAS scrubbed some content (likely directed by her husband when he was job hunting) but the majority of it is still out there on the web. Google pink Pill of
death and Jenna Andersen Vibrator as examples. She also has accounts under name Jenna Cole

The degree and nature of her mental illness is a favorite topic of debate among her follwers. Personally, I think she is a bonified narcissist who is also bipolar.

[RoseQuartz]

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[Ultralight]

Narcissism though isn't a mental illness...

I think it is. And the cure is hard knocks. And probably immersion into wilderness.

[ApatheticNoMore]

Her behavior as described is extreme enough that if I was to hazard a guess: could be borderline.

Although people may use the term casually when it doesn't really apply (though I strongly suspect Trump has the real personality disorder) narcissism is definitely a mental illness according to the shrinks (DSMV etc.).

People make will make fun of her even if mentally ill because they assume her behavior is coming from at least a somewhat less disturbed framework and that she just chooses to be perverse. It may not be so readily a choice, but it is a darn shame she is raising children with her crazy (ha there are whole books on children of narcissists, and I don't even know about children of borderlines). Too bad frankly if her husband is less disturbed than her that he doesn't have custody.

[Ultralight]

Her hubby must have some screws loose to have married her.

[iris lilies]

Narcissism though isn't a mental illness, and if she is mentally ill I'd think people would not make fun of her.

I think the hipster movement, vanity, and internet navel gazing is worthy of discussion and poking fun at, but I'm uncomfortable when it is about speculating on mental illness. When I see someone who appears to be mentally ill become unglued in the public sphere I always feel grief not amusement.

I don't meant to wet blanket the topic, but I don't think bipolar disorder is funny.

i dont find the way she treats her children funny at all. With all of the resources in the world at her disposal and if she IS mentally ill (and she references therapists and therapist shopping) at some point she needs to step away from all of the attention seeking on the internet, close the keyboard, and focus on getting better and making her children feel safe and loved.
That point passed several years ago.

[RoseQuartz]

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[Ultralight]

If Jenna is indeed mentally ill then she needs serious help. And her kids will need help too.

If she is just thirsty and a bad decision-maker with a self-absorption problem, then that is a different situation.

[RoseQuartz]

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[Gardenarian]

I don't know who this Jenna person is and I'm not going to bother finding out.

Back to the original article - yes, I agree it was lame.

I think there are people who have problems with minimalism. I occasionally go to the MMM forums and am surprised by the number of people who have retired early and have no idea what to do with themselves. They are so straightjacketed in their way of thinking - mustn't spend, must be frugal, must always be thinking about the future - that they have forgotten how to have fun. Being so focused on retiring early, they forgot to think about what they would do with all that time. Many are very minimalist, and seem afraid that adding anything to their lives will cause them to implode.

Pretty sad.

I don't see why minimalism should be an end in itself. It seems like it should be part of a broader picture or philosophy: "I'm buying less so I can pay off my loans." "I'm trying to reduce my needs and wants so I can take a part-time job." "I want to give more, and so I want to take less for myself." "Consuming less is one way I can help preserve the environment." "I want to create things, not buy them."

But being minimalist for its own sake? Kind of like "Whoever dies with the LEAST toys wins."

[Ultralight]

I don't know who this Jenna person is and I'm not going to bother finding out.

Back to the original article - yes, I agree it was lame.

I think there are people who have problems with minimalism. I occasionally go to the MMM forums and am surprised by the number of people who have retired early and have no idea what to do with themselves. They are so straightjacketed in their way of thinking - mustn't spend, must be frugal, must always be thinking about the future - that they have forgotten how to have fun. Being so focused on retiring early, they forgot to think about what they would do with all that time. Many are very minimalist, and seem afraid that adding anything to their lives will cause them to implode.

Pretty sad.

I don't see why minimalism should be an end in itself. It seems like it should be part of a broader picture or philosophy: "I'm buying less so I can pay off my loans." "I'm trying to reduce my needs and wants so I can take a part-time job." "I want to give more, and so I want to take less for myself." "Consuming less is one way I can help preserve the environment." "I want to create things, not buy them."

But being minimalist for its own sake? Kind of like "Whoever dies with the LEAST toys wins."

If I were to retire early I'd certainly know what to do with myself!

I think that minimalism as an end in itself is pretty dang rare. I know a bunch in my area now and none of them act like minimalism is an end of itself. They usually talk about things like:
-Spending more quality time with their kids (there are a couple moms in the crew)
-Going fishing (me)
-Cycle commuting (a few of us)
-Knitting and crafting
-Focusing on being healthier physically

I mean, it is basically a meta-lifestyle. You become a minimalist and it allows you to stop wasting time on silly stuff and get into what you want to get into really.

[LDAHL]

If I were to retire early I'd certainly know what to do with myself!

I think that minimalism as an end in itself is pretty dang rare. I know a bunch in my area now and none of them act like minimalism is an end of itself. They usually talk about things like:
-Spending more quality time with their kids (there are a couple moms in the crew)
-Going fishing (me)
-Cycle commuting (a few of us)
-Knitting and crafting
-Focusing on being healthier physically

I mean, it is basically a meta-lifestyle. You become a minimalist and it allows you to stop wasting time on silly stuff and get into what you want to get into really.

Perhaps "minimalist" is a less descriptive term than "essentialist"? The first term implies a reduction to almost everything but bare survival needs. The second term implies focusing on what you regard as truly important and dismissing the trivial.