A lot has happened since the initial spark that transformed our household from a colorful, semi-chaotic place characterized by a passion for collecting into a somehow always tidy and constantly changing oasis of rest. Especially with ourselves.
Like now: Minimalists - we?!
For a long time, we couldn't imagine anything more absurd than becoming minimalists. Really not. Not that we had a negative attitude towards the current or demonized it in any way - we simply did not deal with it, because it did not appear on our habit-forming and determining radar.
Much too busy with keeping up the normal household of the average consumer, we swam through our days, weeks and months - from today's perspective: quite remotely controlled.
Convention was our maxim, materialism our normality, supermarket, cheap Swede and animal products our everyday life. We were normal, to put it in a word that is meant to be neutral.
Today we are certainly not better people in the sense that we would suddenly have achieved moral enlightenment and could now justifiably rise above the "average human being" outlined above, in whatever relationship. We are not more advanced, no light bulbs have been comic-like lit above our heads, we have not drunk from the source of infinite wisdom.
We just sat down - and thought. A little at least...
How one led to another
The beginning was made by the very abrupt change from vegetarianism to veganism of my humble self (which I went through with all consistency, but more about this in another article). I had read a book (this one) that in principle was the long-overdue attack on my damaged conscience, the long-awaited slap in the face, and that let me put into action overnight my intentions, which had long since been grasped inside.
After some time of acclimatization, which did not run smoothly at all, the animal products, which could be found in our household, continued to be reduced until they had reached zero at some point. And so did our need.
Greenhorns: Hello, lifestyle veganism!
Now we threw ourselves - as is the case with all things that are new, exciting and exciting - into veganism with all our might. Not so much on a stubborn, uninspired, dogmatic level as on a consumer-oriented level: the world of infinite substitutes, promising salvation, opened up in front of us - and we bathed in the flow of not having to renounce.
As a result, no animal actually found its way into our refrigerator, but it was still somehow quite colorful, shrill and stuffed with all kinds of possible and impossible processed foods. We had actually only, we noticed slowly, but surely, our consumption shifted. Was that better? The way we understood "better" now - after always thinking continuously?
Consumption vs. sustainable consumption
Because creeping more and more criteria had crept into our lives, which became the guidelines of the same: We realized (or more correctly: let our thoughts and deeds follow) that fair is better than conventional, that tropical fruits don't necessarily have to be in the middle of winter and that natural foods are somehow much more exciting than packaged foods, which in a way already look at the spoon as soon as the packaging is removed.
And because the kitchen - as probably in many households - was the hub of our lives (to create a word monster that could grasp the superlative of the meaning of this space), our antennas were particularly sensitive to recalibration there. I've already told you here how terrible it felt to produce mountains of plastic packaging after every purchase and hypocritically fill the purchased food into fancy glasses.
When we realized that things couldn't go on like this, our first approach was to rethink the kitchen. In concrete terms: shopping unpacked, stocking up on jute bags, ordering a bio box. And very important: Only to buy what we really need. We realized that it was not the right thing (at least for us) to simply replace one form of consumption with another.
This last idea would prove to be effective and over time would extend to all our areas of life. Because once pushed, the machine in the head knows no more holding and rattles and rattles and squeaks cheerfully to itself.
Minimize: Out with the stuff!
From there it wasn't far to inspect the objects that had accumulated over years of living together - and from there it was only a stone's throw to the general overhaul of the entire household.
I don't know how many boxes full of clothes, how many bags of books and how many boxes full of all kinds of bits and pieces we donated to the blackboard, the Red Cross and the bookcase or simply put on the street to take away. Maybe I should have counted - that would have been nice for a drastic visual comparison.
But I was far too busy throwing off the material slag that reduced the air we breathe and the light-heartedness in our apartment so much that I didn't even think about it.
To clean out - at least in this radicalism - is Janus-faced. On the one hand, it's incredibly stressful because it's physically exhausting - and on the other hand I've rarely experienced anything more liberating.
This brings minimalism
What has all this minimalization - which is by no means over yet - actually brought us? Much, very much. It has had an effect on our lives in a way that can almost be described as being upside down.
Space!
Quite trivial, but yes: We could now move back into our former cute 60-square-meter apartment without batting an eyelid and would certainly still have more than enough space.
No more bits and pieces to clog the real ones, catch the eye and wipe (or not) around in a complicated way. No weekly groaning, because you don't know where to go with the new hobbies you've just bought. No mess that can't be removed within ten minutes.
In short: We. To have. Space.
Sometimes I am still completely in love with our new old rooms, which look transformed by the less, despite the age of the house and despite the fact that the apartment does not correspond to my personal Living dream. A bit like they'd put on their wedding dress.
What do I want? Style finding and identity rediscovery.
Reducing, however, brings with it a completely different, at least equally significant advantage, which is of course closely linked to the first: you suddenly know what you want. Find your own style. At least that's what happened to me - and the consequences of this discovery continue to this day.
The problem with owning a lot is not only that the objects take up physical space, but that they do the same on the psychological level. In concrete terms, this means that through the unbelievable flooding with the masses of things that somehow do not fit together, that were bought in the affect and found to be singular but not collectively beautiful, no real style could develop in the sense that I really knew what I actually wanted.
How I want to dress, how I want to design my apartment. What style I want to base my life on and what that actually says about me. These are things I hadn't given much thought to until now - I simply bought what the advertising had shown to be worth buying. This resulted in a mind-boggling mix of colors, styles, patterns, shades, implied ego-designs that were never thought through. A chaos.
When we began to throw out the superfluous things radically, the freedom/facilitation I mentioned was not only due to the spatial space: With each part I separated from because I knew that (for whatever reason) it didn't (anymore) belong to me, didn't matter to me anymore, so I couldn't identify with it - with each of those separated parts I automatically knew a bit more about how I wanted to design myself in the future and who I actually was. Identification through rejection - the oldest of all games also worked here.
It was a bit as if the objects had not only delivered the rooms of our apartment, but also those of my soul.
Concentration on the essentials
The last effect resulting from the other things that a turn to minimalism has had for us is the concentration on the essential - in all areas of life.
This starts with the simple looking through space, which suddenly becomes so much easier for the eye, because the corresponding place is not full of colorful, mixed-up spots of color, and ends with a general relaxation with regard to buying, not buying, consuming and life in general.
- We don't have to walk into the shopping mile every Saturday anymore and stock up on clothes to feel good. Instead, we use the time for ourselves, reading a good book, writing or spending time together.
- We don't stress ourselves because we have seen object XY on this or that person (or in advertising - which we hardly consume any more, by the way) now also absolutely and immediately must-have. We don't have to.
- We also don't have to go shopping if we don't feel like it now. Then we'll go tomorrow. We have become more creative - after all, potatoes are always in the house. Make something out of what's there. Strict your head.
Relax
It's a fundamental I-need-for-the-first-time-nothing relief that minimalism has given us. A bit (much) more quality of life, although we didn't become millionaires or heirs overnight. A bit more satisfaction with us and life.
Have you had similar experiences with minimalism?