I am intrigued by the idea of minimalism. I read books and articles about it. I try to apply it to my own life.
One of the better books I’ve read on the topic is Keep The Memories and Lose the Stuff by Matt Paxton. He talks to this idea of “stories”. A concept that every item we own has a story with a degree of emotional weight attached to it. If you can somehow disassociate the story from the physical thing , you can move toward reducing the physical clutter in your life.
A notebook that I just bought from Amazon has less emotional weight that a notebook handed down to me by a dying relative…as a somewhat extreme example.
In the end it’s just a notebook. A series of pages processed from a tree bound together with cardboard or leather from a cow if you are lucky. A composition of chemicals and physics. It’s just stuff. But its the memory of my relative and the emotions that propagate that give it power. I can’t throw the pages out because I would feel like I am somehow throwing my relative out
How to Live by Derek Sivers : “Give away everything you haven’t used in a week. Ownership binds you to the past.”
“You’re not the same person you were last year or even last week. Old friends and family see you as you used to be and unintentionally discourage your growth”
But memory is a powerful thing, particularly if it creates emotion. Happiness, Sadness, Nostalgia.
Maybe it’s better to keep those things that generate true emotion. It’s what makes us human after all.
#minimalism
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