Minimalism: Why Do We Collect Stuff?

Minimalism <=>

Imagine this, you are walking around the mall one day, with the objective of buying a sweater or a shirt because your last one is worn & torn. You enter your favorite store, who's very modest with discounts & right there! Love at first sight, you see the sweater that you're looking for! It is of the perfect design, it matches your style and best of all, it comes in your size. You make way towards the cashier as happy as a lark, but at the corner of your eye, you stop a few feet shy and see a pair of jeans that would go extremely well with your shirt.

You feel a strange & uneasy feeling and think about your budget for a sec, but the discounted price on its tag washes away your worries, & you make a beeline purchase with the matching pair. And as the week goes by, like a Vitoria's Secret model, you make everyone fall in love & awe in your presence. People are showering compliments on you, whether in person or on Instagram, and you feel like you're on top of the world. 

But as soon as that week passes, you get a notification alert from that store that says that they just received newly arrived stock of those limited addition silver-plated rings or chains that would make a killer combo with your outfit. You make time to pop by the store to complete your collection, but after some time, you start to wonder to yourself: "Where did all my money go?" 

Now, there is no shame & wrong in doing this, as I am also guilty of this myself. Nobody is perfect, and sometimes even with the will of iron, I would succumb to that magical spell, cast onto me by that item. 

However, there is a way of thinking, that may help reduce our impulses of buying & help regain back our power & freedom over that. And that is the way of minimalism. 

Let's talk about this.

So Why Do We Collect Stuff? 

"Too many people are working hard on things they don't love, to spend money they don't have, to buy things they don't need, to impress people they don't like.    -Jay Shetty"

In today's world, it seems as though that constant consumption & instant gratification has unconsciously become our default setting of living our lives. As stated above by awe-inspiring content maker Jay Shetty, we buy stuff that we don't actually need, depriving ourselves of our hard earned money, (sometimes even going into debt), only to further enrich an already wealthy minority. 

And although quite a number of us acknowledges this fact, most of us still live with "society's brainwashing", playing in the background as unconscious chatter inside our minds. Telling us that "we may never be complete without this......etc." Thus, fueling a perpetual sense of lack within us. 

Now, to give some credit to mainstream society, yes, we do need to consume, but only to some extent. Because for the most part, simple requirements such as food & shelter can be easily satisfied. It is our wants & desires, rather than our needs that seem to be unquenchable. 

But despite the fact that consumerism governs our society like an empire of an ancient world, it doesn't mean that our freedom is stolen & that we are its prisoners.

Minimalism Gone Wrong? 

Minimalism is a philosophical concept that has been practiced by people throughout the centuries. From Sages & Greek philosophers such as Epicurus and Seneca to transcendentalist & author Henry David Thoreau, minimalism is simply the awareness of living a life of simplicity, with minimal attachments. However, there are misconceptions about minimalism, and we will explore about them now:

Ascetism: 

When upon hearing the word minimalism, most of us tend to think of someone who lives with almost nothing to their name. No possessions, no clothes (hopefully not), nothing. But this form of radical thinking or lifestyle is actually known as ascetism instead. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, asceticism is the practice of living in a simple and strict way, without any physical pleasures, especially for religious reasons. 

A famous example of ascetism is when Siddhartha Gautama, on his journey to find enlightenment, tried to subsist  solely on a grain of rice every single day. However, this practice made him extremely malnourished & physically weak, and he concluded that the punishment of the body would not lead to enlightenment.

Minimalism in essence is living within our means, but true ascetism is living below that. 

Minimalistic Lifestyle Trend: 

A second misconception of minimalism is the "minimalistic lifestyle trend". It is a fashionable & wealthy form of minimalism which focuses more on the emphasis of getting rid of cheaper & more mundane objects, in replacement with more expensive & sophisticated ones as the highlight of that living space. An example that highlights this contradictory is a person who has a minimalistic interior but resides in a 2 million dollar apartment. 

Despite having a minimalistic element to its design, one still needs a lot of money & resources to maintain and upkeep such a living space. This can be seen as a form of sophisticated consumerism, as it uses minimalism as a tool to highlight one's status in life.

True minimalism however, is knowing that happiness comes from the content of owning enough, and that it is detached from other factors such as status & acts of grandeur. 

The Possession Trap:

"Detachment is not that you own nothing, detachment is that nothing owns you."    -The Bhagavad Gita

As exhilarating as buying can be, there is a danger to constantly purchasing on our whims & fancies. And that danger is the possession trap. Generally speaking, the possession trap typically happens when the things you end up buying, end up owning you. This happens to us because of one thing: Fear. 

For example, I know a friend who is a die-hard collector of Star Wars figurines. He LITERALLY has shelves upon shelves of both the Empire & the Republic space fleet. He has everything from the iconic Millennium Falcon, X-Wing & Y-Wings, to the Imperial Star Destroyer & its TIE Fighters. He even has a (almost) life-sized version of The Death Star, that was as detailed in every way to the movie as imaginable.

And its fair to say that amassing such a mighty fleet costs nothing short of a small fortune. However, even though he was extremely proud of his achievement, deep down, he still couldn't completely shake off the fear of losing his figurines sometimes. Be it from the prying eyes of thieves, to accidental fires happening in the building, he thought it all. 

So to counter this, he chose to upgrade his smoke alarm with the newest model, beefed up his front door, as well as home security and even had the options of a baseball bat and a fire axe in his room, should the need arise for him to defend himself. Now, being a martial artist myself, I don't think that having adequate security is wrong, but the paranoia written on his face, as well as the hole he burnt in his wallet showed me otherwise.

Having a lot of possessions require adequate protection. But by not owning much on the other hand, we save ourselves a lot more time & energy. We don't have to own a lot of expensive things, and they don't have to distract us either. For we are still able to find joy in this world, as we don't have to own what we enjoy.

Beautiful Simplicity

Ultimately, there is a sense of freedom in simplicity and not owning much. Collecting possessions as a form of memorabilia so that it can remind us of that outing we had with our family or friends is beautiful & meaningful. But if we were to mindlessly purchase anything we like, every time we go out, we not only lose our money & hard work of attaining it, we also lose the most precious commodity of all, which is time. For we can exchange time for money, but not money for time.

Rather, we should collect experiences in our lives instead. As quoted by Jay Shetty, "Things can never make us happy, because they are temporary and limited. But experiences can last forever." 

And what's more, experiences don't need to be expensive. You don't have to drive all the way to down town to watch a concert, or to take a flight trip to Tokyo every so often. You can just call a friend, try dancing wackily to your favorite song or cook a new recipe. Take a stroll in the park, read a book under a shady tree, or even just driving without the aid of Waze. Your level of experience in life is only limited by your imagination.

All in all, I'll end my blog here with this nugget of wisdom from Einzelganger: "Possessions don't define who we are, and that the ongoing pursuit of things prevents us from truly experiencing life to the fullest."

Thanks for reading!

Yours Sincerely,

Satori Café