I am not a minimalist. I have many hobbies that require things - cameras, woodworking, metalworking, automotive work, mountain bikes, drones, art, guitar. I hav

I am not a minimalist. I have many hobbies that require things - cameras, woodworking, metalworking, automotive work, mountain bikes, drones, art, guitar. I have the equipment for all these things, and in many cases, much more specialized equipment for working with or on these things. Need to put a new crankset on your bike? I have the tools for that. Need to do an oil change in a land rover? I have those too. Need to laser engrave some wood, or cut it with a CNC router? yep. Better yet, I do it in San Francisco (I rented a house with a 2 car garage 4 years ago). Minimalism is great, but it makes you either completely dependent on others and services for your everyday needs - cooking, cleaning, repairing, making, hobbies - or means you can't do or have those things. IN cities like SF and NY, I have many friends that just rely on apps and services to get stuff done, and would rather pay the bike shop $100 for a tune up than buy $100 worth of tools and never need to pay for a tune up again. They are often the same friends that are very specialized in their fields or in single hobbies and don't tend to look outside of those things they do well. I reject that philosophy completely. In general, I find minimalism fights with experimentation, creativity, and serendipity. The more you try, and the more you learn, the better off you are, I think. Take this example: I recently bought a drone. I didn't know anything much about drones except for a few reviews before buying one. If I had been a minimalist, I would have considered that a drone would further clutter my office (very cluttered already), and potentially would be hard to resell given how fast the technology advances. My risk then is having a drone I don't like and taking some financial loss on something I didn't enjoy. As someone who is not a minimalist, my worries were that it would be hard to fly, or that I would regret not getting a different drone. As it happens, the latter is true, and I likely will take some financial loss in selling the one I bought, but by happy accident, I am now writing and researching commercial drone use for work and using the drone I have to prepare for getting licensed as a commercial drone pilot. I didn't anticipate there being any connection to my work when I got into it, but because I did I ended up gaining some benefits I wouldn't have otherwise had. (it also turns out that I have most of the equipment from woodworking and metalworking to make my own drones, so I'm looking into that angle as well now).