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The Few Things I Own
- bryanp 10y agoI'm always fascinated by how people choose to live while traveling, so thanks for sharing! Curious though how you handle food. Do you prepare your own or eat out? Judging from the lack of utensils, etc I imagine the latter.
- abgawrv 10y agoIf he's in Thailand (which I'm assuming from him having a Thai Macbook), then it's actually much cheaper and more convenient to eat out, at least anywhere outside Bangkok. Same situation in Cambodia -- I initially attempted to cook a lot here but gave up since it's cheaper to eat the food in my alley and around the market near my apartment and it tastes better than anything I can cook.
- hprotagonist 10y agoA chalkbag but no shoes? What are you, tech Henry Barber[0]? [0]: http://enormocast.com/episode-39-henry-barber-enough-said/ http://enormocast.com/episode-39-henry-barber-enough-said/
- pmiller2 10y agoI am not a minimalist, but literally everything I own except my car fits comfortably in a 12x15 room. There is plenty of space, and the closet is nowhere near full. That's simple enough for me. :)
- ASpring 10y agoI also find this to be a nicer balance while I'm not traveling. If I can fit everything I own in a small compact car then I am happy with my amount of belongings.
- pmiller2 10y agoHmm, I can move all my stuff except my furniture (probably in 2 trips to make it easier) in a Honda Civic, but it doesn't all comfortably fit.
- ams6110 10y agoNo toothbrush?
- simonsarris 10y agoYou can probably get by with salt water (rinse) alone if you don't eat any sugar. Ideally, rinsing after every meal.
- _chu 10y agoThe small toiletries I just buy on arrival. As a (fragrant) side note, I've haven't used soap or shampoo for two years.
- knowaveragejoe 10y agoSo what do you do, just rinse with water?
- _chu 10y agoYup. Basic idea is hormesis: you WANT the bacteria on your skin, and you are doing yourself a disservice by washing it off. Same deal with gut bacteria. Hell, they even have soap with bacteria IN it now...
- tzs 10y agoGenerally, the only places that may regularly need soap are the armpits and groin. So why do we think we need to soap up all over every day? The same reason we do a lot of unnecessary things: advertising. Soap manufacturers spent many years promoting the idea that unless you bathed daily using soap everywhere you would be more smelly than a skunk and people would shun you. That's also why we use mouthwash daily, by the way. Listerine was first sold to consumers as a floor cleaner. To boost sales the manufacturer invented the word "halitosis" (because that makes it sound much more serious than "bad breath") and promoted Listerine as the way to prevent it using scary ads proclaiming that you might not even know you have it but your friends will know. It worked, and in under a decade revenue went up by nearly two orders of magnitude. There's an excellent "Adam Ruins Everything" episode on hygiene that goes over these things and more.
- sandworm101 10y agoI don't believe it. I do believe that many of these minimalists are slightly delusional. They claim to not "own" things, but they are still using things. Sometimes that means greater consumption. Not owning a towel is cool, until you start drying yourself with paper towels at the gym (I saw this today). Not owning tools is cool, if you are rich/well-connected enough to find someone to fix all your stuff. I own a small mountain of tools, but also haven't had need of a professional plumber or carpenter is years. When my office chair or laptop breaks, I'm able to fix it myself. Reuse is better than recycling. Sometimes that means owning tools. (I carry a set of screwdrivers even in my laptop carry-on.) And all the stuff in the OP looks far too new. It doesn't show much wear and tear. So either it isn't being used, or these things are being replaced too soon. I own many shirts. Some are shiny and new. I wear those when I want to look good. I have other shirts for daily use. Eventually the shiny ones become daily shirts. I own more shirts, but I consumer fewer because I find uses for shirts that a minimalist would throw away prematurely. That makes me the better minimalist because, over the years, I will consumer far fewer.
- Johnny555 10y agoWhen you don't own much, there's not much to fix. I own a lot of tools too (I do pretty much all of my own car maintenance - including replacing the head gaskets (a 2 month project I wouldn't do again)), but I doubt that is more environmentally sustainable than hiring experts (with their own tools), and I'm not saving any money unless I count my own labor as "free".
- sandworm101 10y agoIf you working on that car meant that it wasn't scrapped, if the job you did for free was a job that a pro would charge more for than the car's value, then owning the tools to replace head gaskets is the more environmental approach. The energy needed to generate a new car from base metals is immense. I guess we have to draw a line between those minimalists who want to just own fewer things for the zen of reduced clutter, and those who equate minimalism with efficiency or anti-consumerism. That's why the Amish still own and use modern tools. Their minimalism is more practical than ideological.
- CalChris 10y agoWhen I was 20, most of what I had was books and they'd fit in 2 or 3 boxes. When I moved, I'd pack 'em up and mail them to myself bookrate.
- bbcbasic 10y agoAny Greek-statue wielding maximalists here?
- ashark 10y agoIt's easy to be a "maximalist" compared to this. Have a spouse, have kids. Cook. Have pretty much any hobby. Maintain a house (tools, lawn junk). Have people over sometimes who expect you to, you know, have things like a normal person does. That said, if I were young, unattached, and traveling a lot, of course I'd live like this. It doesn't even seem that special or surprising to me to live this way under those circumstances.
- bshimmin 10y agoThere's a hilariously ridiculous piece from Dustin Curtis that mixes this minimalist approach with "only having the best of everything": https://dcurt.is/the-best https://dcurt.is/the-best I quite like to imagine him having a few people over for dinner: "Oh, sorry, I'm afraid my indescribably perfect Japanese flatware costs $8,000 for a fork so I could only buy two. The rest of you can just use your hands, but you're welcome to admire my fork for a moment if you wish to..."
- paulcole 10y agoIt's funny to me because this definition of "best" is more like "nicest looking/fanciest/most expensive I could google."
- erroneousfunk 10y agoMan, that is some ugly flatware. I have some 10 year old flatware that I picked up from a yard sale in college. I'm pretty sure it's just as dependable and useful as his... While I completely understand the maniacal pursuit of "the best" (I've developed obsessions with mattresses, digital cameras, and shaving razors at various points in my life) deeply caring about every single one of your possessions seems way more exhausting than it's worth.
- criddell 10y ago
- chris_7 10y agoI don't see how that chalk bag can be useful without 1. climbing shoes and 2. a harness and/or a crashpad. I guess he boulders barefoot at an indoor gym?
- _chu 10y agoThanks for reading! I don't climb much anymore; the chalk is for ring work and barbell lifts.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- chris_7 10y agoHave you had trouble fitting your legs into Climbers if you're lifting heavy enough to need chalk? (I almost exclusively wear SDs)
- Rapzid 10y agoI was thinking the same thing before I ready the article; what does this dude do borrow equipment from everyone he meets?! I carry more rock climbing gear on a multi-pitch climb than stuff he owns! But then I read the description and it sounds like it's for general working out or something? IDK, I've never personally needed chalk for or met anyone that needed chalk for lifting. Perhaps he works out in very humid climates, but I'd think there would be chalk provided at the gyms? Likely an item that could be practically dropped?
- ASpring 10y ago> IDK, I've never personally needed chalk for or met anyone that needed chalk for lifting. Perhaps he works out in very humid climates, but I'd think there would be chalk provided at the gyms? Just as another data point: I've never been to a gym that supplies chalk to members. If you're doing heavy deadlifting or olympic lifting then chalk is nearly a requirement.
- 10y ago
- lifeformed 10y agoI used to do this, but then I started to get into cooking. Cookware weighs you down quite a bit... It's nice doing this when travelling, while also having a home base. I have a lightweight setup for short trips, and a bigger one for longer trips (music production gear that all fits in a oversize check-in bag).
- dougmwne 10y agoWhat good is cookware if you have no kitchen? If you rent a furnished place with a kitchen there's a reasonable chance it'll have the cookware you need. If you have a permanent residence then the cookware needed to create thousands of dishes could fit in a single cupboard.
- lifeformed 10y agoWell, once you get into it as a hobby, you want to get your own specific cookware, and the gadgets start adding up. A dutch oven, pressure cooker, mixer, wok, cast iron pans, stock pots, etc all start to add up and you have to commit to having some home-base eventually.
- gexla 10y agoIn the Philippines, I could add another item to the list. In certain areas, you don't have trash services. When people want to get rid of something, they burn it. Whenever I buy something, I put great thought into how I eventually get rid of it.
- cko 10y agoI threw out everything I owned. But that is not minimalism. Minimalism is when I can throw out the thoughts in my head. - James Altucher
- daveguy 10y agoThat is a great concept. Did he achieve this? Is there a follow up on how to throw out all the thoughts?
- developer2 10y ago> Pop-ups are annoying, but that's the point. Indeed they are; so annoying, in fact, that the tab containing your webpage gets closed before I get to read the first word of your article.
- rdeboo 10y agoOn iphone, there is no way to close the popup. The only way out is the back button.
- cookingrobot 10y agoI was going to give up but found a way to pinch zoom to get the close button visible. I guess I hacked my way to the news. :)
- bshimmin 10y agoI've never really understood this argument: "I'll own very few clothes because..." This saves me from worrying about 'outfits' Are there really people who are so wracked with indecision about their sartorial choices that they'd rather just... not make any? (The whole Steve Jobs single outfit thing was obviously just an affectation.)
- mattnewton 10y agoObama also has commented on his choice to have only one kind of suit. I have a few friends who do the same. Not saying that it makes you Obama or Steve but it isn't uncommon to optimize that part of life away once you have a suitable outfit that looks good.
- chris_7 10y agohttp://ichef-1.bbci.co.uk/news/660/media/images/77245000/jpg/_77245786_aptopixobama_logi.jpg http://ichef-1.bbci.co.uk/news/660/media/images/77245000/jpg... Unless he just means "two button, notch lapel", but that's not really one kind of suit.
- mattnewton 10y agoThat is funny actually because people made a big deal about it, so when you are the president and have people paying attention to what you wear that gives you another reason to just stick to one good choice. My source was this article, maybe Obama doesn't always follow his own advice: https://www.fastcompany.com/3026265/work-smart/always-wear-the-same-suit-obamas-presidential-productivity-secrets https://www.fastcompany.com/3026265/work-smart/always-wear-t...
- emidln 10y agoI started doing this with socks. I bought a package of black crew socks and packed away all of my other socks. It simplified a little bit of my life, and I never unpacked the other socks. I eventually bought in for the rest of my wardrobe. It's nice not needing to stop and think "does this go together?" (or the equivalent of my wife saying "you can't go out looking like that!")
- cup 10y agoAh the luxury of having enough money to live a spartan life safely, knowing if you ever need anything you can just buy it. Not so useful for people who can't afford to keep buying socks , eat out every single night or live a travelling lifestyle.
- dougmwne 10y agoThat's a very fair point. This is probably a lifestyle for someone who'd otherwise be living on middle class tech worker wages. It's for people who have the luxury to choose their lifestyle. In no way do I view his backpack and duffel as as a solution to poverty. Then again, I see your comment pretty frequently in response to minimalism. Maybe because it can look like a vow of poverty, but really is not even close.
- bikamonki 10y agoAlways, always, always ask yourself the following: if everyone else in the world would do what you do, would the world still work? Yes? Ok, keep going. Maybe you have something to teach. No? Change, you are wrong.
- majewsky 10y agoI see where you're going, and I like the general direction, but I won't agree with "No? -> You are wrong." A major strength of human society is its diversity and individual specialization. Everyone needs a different job, so that all jobs get done. If I imagine a work where everyone does the same job, it will result in mayhem because other important jobs don't get done. But that doesn't mean that every job is wrong.
- eloisant 10y agoThat's the thing about these people who don't own much more than a MacBook Pro. They talk like they're some kind of buddhist monk with their minimal life but in reality they're relying on the consumerist society (dining out, using only disposable stuff, etc) and have a much bigger environmental impact that if they owned some cookware to cook their own food for example.
- grecy 10y ago> if everyone else in the world would do what you do, would the world still work? Do you define the current state of the world as "working"? You'd be better to say "if more people in the world did what I do, would things get better or worse". It's not my birth-function in life to perpetuate the way society currently functions. I didn't sign some kind of contract that says I will make life decisions to make sure things stay the way they are now. If I choose to work less, and consume less, that's entirely my choice. If everyone did it there would obviously be impacts, and things would change, though nobody has ever convinced me that society wouldn't be better if people had more leisure time and less stuff.
- NumberCruncher 10y ago>>Always, always, always ask yourself the following: if everyone else in the world would do what you do, would the world still work. The sun would still rise tomorrow. Supposed time as we think to know it really exist. Some people say that there is not such a thing as time and we all are one. In this case everybody is doing what he is doing. And the world seems to work for me.
- rtpg 10y agoDoes this guy not wash his clothes? I can't imagine a shirt being used 3 days in a row at the gym not smelling awful. I'm also a bit fascinated at going out of your way to buy shirts half-off, then buying a 12-inch macbook. If you only own a couple things, why not just get the thing directly? Though maybe this is one of those "the richest people are the stingiest" things I am super fascinated by minimalism as a concept though, especially when the rubber hits the road. What do you do for weddings, for example? How can you mesh minimalism with trying not to waste things (disposable toiletries are a bit of a waste). Bit OT, but I remember some guy who went minimalist after the macbook air came out. Like just shirts, MBA, and a kindle. I remember the blog being pretty popular in tech circles, does anyone know what I'm thinking about?
- rosser 10y agoThe shirt is merino wool. It's magical stuff. As my top level comment said, I have the same shirt. I've worn it similarly. It truly hasn't stunk, no matter how long I've worn it, or how long it's gone between washings (not, granted, that I've pushed it; I think, at worst, it's gone a couple weeks between washings, being worn perhaps half that time).
- paulcole 10y agoYeah, nthing merino. Amazing as long as you hang dry between wearings. The thicker the better, even in warm weather (thin merino can wear holes pretty quickly).
- rosser 10y ago> thin merino can wear holes pretty quickly True story. I'm wearing my Icebreaker merino hoodie right now, and have a cat who likes to drape herself across my shoulders. Holes ensue.
- ashark 10y ago> Bit OT, but I remember some guy who went minimalist after the macbook air came out. Like just shirts, MBA, and a kindle. I remember the blog being pretty popular in tech circles, does anyone know what I'm thinking about? This one? http://tynan.com/gear2016 http://tynan.com/gear2016 (there are other years, that's just the most recent)
- pvg 10y agoThere's something to be said for documenting one's experiences and practical tips for traveling light for the benefit of others. Wrapping them in some sort of pretense of a moral philosophy seems gratingly contradictory and tone deaf, though. "The Zuckerbergs, Bransons, hedge fund managers of the world are wearing the same few things, eating the same few things and trying to work in the same few places. [...] My first week on the road, my old laptop broke. I had work to do, so I went to the first Apple store I could find in Thailand and bought this guy." Ok, great but this is not in any conceivable way, as a goal or in practice, any of this: "Practice in poverty. Routinely exposing yourself to fear, stress and hardship in a stable environment to bulletproof your mind for when the proverbial shit hits the proverbial fan."
- ashark 10y ago> "Practice in poverty. Routinely exposing yourself to fear, stress and hardship in a stable environment to bulletproof your mind for when the proverbial shit hits the proverbial fan." Yeah, I'm not sure this is what Seneca had in mind. More like visiting the soup kitchen as a diner while wearing clothes you got for free.
- pvg 10y agoIt's a little known fact that when Nero asked Seneca to commit suicide, Seneca consoled himself by going to the nearest Apple Store.
- rosser 10y agoI bought (among other things) the Wool & Prince merino button-down for a hand-luggage-only around-the-world trip last year. It is every bit as amazing as he suggests, and then some.
- bergie 10y agoSame here (I spend roughly half of the year on the road). The shirt is not super durable (was too frayed to be presentable after maybe 250 wears), but amazing enough that I immediately got a new one.
- dougmwne 10y agoI recognize this stuff and the impulse to tell people. It looks well optimized and easy. I have no doubt you live comfortably. Right now I've been moving away from the precious few strategy and over to the durably disposable. My idea is to one day forget everything I own in a coffee shop, shrug, and rebuy immediately for a day's pay.
- tjic 10y agoI appreciate the aesthetic of minimalism, and if it's pragmatic for a particular person, more power to them. There is, however, an underlying (but not specifically articulated) article of faith in the Silicon Valley / news.yc / startup / digital nomad culture that a minimalist life is somehow more moral or sophisticated or something. This meme goes at least as far 2400 years ago when Diogenes the Cynic lived in a barrel. Much of this pride in minimalism is coupled w a only thinly veiled disgust with how "bloated" and "gross" other people are. I've seen blog posts, coffee table books, etc. that intentionally juxtapose pictures of a virtuous, thin, happy minimalist with a unhappy, overweight person and their tons of possessions. e.g. the front cover of this https://www.amazon.com/Material-World-Global-Family-Portrait/dp/0871564300 https://www.amazon.com/Material-World-Global-Family-Portrait... seems almost designed to make us recoil from the "wasteful" American family. The problem I have with this stance is two-fold: (1) there is no inherent reason why it's wasteful or gross to own a lot of things. Sure, some people purchase junk too fill a void inside them. But other people drink to excess, sleep around, or travel to the ends of the earth for the same reason. Just because some people in category X are motivated this way doesn't mean that everyone in category X is. (2) much of the self-congratulation on minimalism is really just disguised self-congratulation for being upper-middle class and having the "right" preferences. A lot of people would tell you that there is no reason that rock-and-roll is inherently better than Indian pop music or African whatever - it's just different cultures with different norms. And yet many of these same people would tell you that their upper-middle-class Silicon Valley lifestyle _IS_ better than, say, that of some family living in the suburbs of Texas. The fact that the minimalist Silicon Valley is both enabled by and required by very high incomes is ignored. (What I mean by this: living in SF / Silicon Valley means that you CAN'T have a huge kitchen or garage full of stuff, and it also means that you have the means to substitute other people's capital and labor for your own.) The family living in suburbs in Oklahoma might have a two car garage, but they might also have two rolling tool chests in those garages, so that they can do all the auto maintenance that they need. The minimalist living in SF instead might take Ubers. How is the "gross" profusion of junk in the former case less virtuous than the minimalism of second case? This leads me to my third point: there is no possibility of true minimalism: there is only the ability to outsource the ownership of things to someone else. The SF loft minimalist who only owns two plates and two forks actually owns a fractional share in dozens of industrial kitchens and hundreds of food delivery trucks; they're just kept "off the books". Out of sight, out of mind. A lot of people like to own things, for their own reasons. Some good, some bad. Be aware that when you read "ooh, minimalism good!" articles, you're reading self-flattery. And that's fine - people are allowed to be fans of their own economic class and lifestyle aesthetic. ...but such propaganda should not be consumed uncritically, or without awareness of who and what is implicitly being denegrated by it.
- thinkMOAR 10y ago"The pen and paper, well... that's the most important thing I own." Without explaining why a cellphone or that thai notebook wouldn't work there is a bit odd while claiming its the most important thing you own. If it's the most important, i think it deserves a few lines on why.
- rco8786 10y agoEspecially since he also describes his Macbook as his "most important item". Neat writeup though.
- nojvek 10y agoThe minimalism he talks about still largely depends on other people helping out. I'm far more interested in decentralized minimalism. Growing your own food, cooking at home, building your own tiny house, solar panels, composters e.t.c Like Gandhi says "be self sufficient"
- TaylorAlexander 10y agoI've recently become pretty serious about building open source "micro factories" so that small communities can be self sufficient without having to spend all of their time subsistence farming. I think it will take a few decades to achieve, but I'm working on it.
- sopooneo 10y agoThe tiny house thing boggles my mind. Where I grew up, I had lots of friends that lived in them. The rich kids made fun of them, called the "trailer trash".
- drukenemo 10y agoA tiny house might be liveable in mild/warm climates. I live in a cold country and spend most of my time indoors. Couldn't imagine being stuck in a tiny space all the time I home.
- Koshkin 10y agoIn theory, one shouldn't need to get rid of things physically, one could do it "mentally" instead. But that turns out to be extremely hard in practice. Still, the true minimalism is just being less concerned with material things rather than being constantly concerned with their presence around you (or even in your "possession").
- xyzzy123 10y agoMaybe the total "stuff" burden should be calculated as: amount of stuff owned * amount you care about it Owning a small number of things you fetishise seems not so different than having a pile of crap that you don't care about at all. The "owning less stuff" movement seems to have a lot more traction where rents are high and space is constrained. It seems to me that people tend to produce moral justifications for what are simply practical constraints.
- eiriklv 10y agoFor me it's about lessening the mental taxation that often comes with the added responsibility of owning things. Mostly from giving you more choices and more things to tend to or care about (even if subconscious). Having to decide what to wear, what to eat for dinner or what to buy at the grocery store might seem like trivial things, but when all of these small things are compounded they end up consuming a large part of your mental energy. Owning less things is just one effort to free up that mental energy to be able to use it elsewhere. Edit: wording
- gandolfinmyhead 10y agomacbooks are not minimalistic in any sense of the word, the concept, it's utilities, etc. Not sure how this would be a part of anyone's minimalistic arsenal.
- combatentropy 10y agoApple products have always been minimalistic. Minimalism has nothing to do with being cheap. Minimalism is doing things like removing the floppy disk drive at the turn of the century, carving a laptop out of a single piece of aluminum, or removing all jacks except one or two. Besides, it doesn't matter. The writer isn't saying that any one of his possessions is minimalistic. He's saying that his number of possessions is minimalistic.
- faebi 10y agoI wouldn't be happy with the clothes decision. I like it to have clothes for 3 weeks so I only need to wash every 3 Weeks. Also we got 6 washing machines in my building, so totally I spend about 30 Minutes for washing and drying and wait 2 hours for it to finish in my flat every 3 weeks. Also I found my favourite brands for T-Shirts, underwear and jeans which always have the same size cut. So buying clothes once a year is also a nobrainer, I only select the color which is easily done. The style decision is also none, a good fitting jeans matches any t-shirt, shirt and hoodie.
- simdiab 10y ago"I wore this to the gym 3 days in a row. No smell. No itch." "In a pinch, I can wash things in the shower too." "I've worn the merino tee for ~10 days straight with no smell though." "As a (fragrant) side note, I've haven't used soap or shampoo for two years." I hate to break it to you dude, but I guarantee that you smell to high heaven and you've just gotten used to it.
- mercer 10y agoWhile the gym thing seems a bit of a stretch, some people just have less of a smell than others.