Minimalism again.

Excuse me but I am still interested in minimalism.

I sometimes call myself a minimalist to people, although I don't think it works because it's not a very well understood word, like "evangelical". What people think that is, and what I am, possibly different. But when someone says to me "when you get your own place you can decorate it" implying that after you buy a house you go to Harvey Norman and buy a dining suite and a TV unit and an ottoman and so on, I say, I'm a minimalist and I'm going to try not to buy anything for the first year in case I have to move again. "I'm a minimalist" sounds weird though.

I never liked minimalism because I thought it was too bland and spartan. I don't want everything to be square and white. E was into minimalism, I didn't get it.

But I had occasional decluttering purges, because overflowing storage areas annoy me. And, after a few years of living in small rented places, I stopped resenting the limitations, and got the hang of it. I also started to get rid of some stuff that I had been storing for sentimental reasons. That was a big change for me. Decluttering forces you to be realistic about your life. Everybody has stuff they are storing for a potential future, and sometimes it's sad to let that future go. It's as hard as letting the past go, I think.

Then at some point recently when researching a decluttering obsession I discovered minimalism, realised that is was quite anti-consumerist and counter cultural, which appeals to me, and there are serious efficiencies to be had in owning less, and actually it wasn't just about everything being white and square. Just... Own less. If you live in an apartment, you are halfway there already, and there is a strong motivation to consider the implications of owning stuff. You kind of have to choose, you might not be able to fit book cases AND bikes AND a dining suite into your apartment. You're forced to ration space, so minimalism, or at least considering owning fewer things, has instant benefits. Minimalists often advocate living in a small place.

The extreme form is to know the exact number of your possessions, ie, you own 10 pieces of clothing. The high priests own 100 things in total apparently. That sounds like really no fun at all. I don't want to have only 10 pieces of clothing that all match each other efficiently, that would be boring. I want whimsical things like my blanket cape. And what do you do when people come over, go out and buy paper plates? That kind of extremity is not friendly. BUT, I really don't want redundancies. Clothes that guilt me out, so I'm applying a bit of 1 in 1 out law at the moment. Same with books. A minimAlist would have no books, just some ebooks. I have the books that I love, like my Austen books, Anne books, discworld books, and some Xn books that i really should read. I try and keep myself from buying cookbooks and so on just for nice things to own. Cookbooks really are beautiful. Rachel Khoo. 

Anyway, my tendency, the deeply ingrained tendency of humans I think, is to keep stuff. Our survival and basic comfort in a slum or a jungle may depend on having a useful strip of cloth stashed away. In the first world, for me, that ain't so, so I need to work against that hoarding tendency so that I don't add new clothes to my wardrobe and never get rid of anything and get another wardrobe and fill that too. I'm using minimalism as a circuit breaker. 

As a middling minimalist, my life won't be 100 possessions. I'll have a much longer and more complicated set of rules. For example, I don't buy fabric for the future. I buy fabric as I need it, in the length I need, and with any luck there will be none left over. I sometimes find lovely fabric that I want to buy and it would be very nice for something, but if I can't think of a precise purpose and an exact length, I walk away.  With books, I usually by audiobooks. Music, usually download as well. DVDs, only a couple a year and mainly ones that I think I can lend to people, so Hart of Dixie was my most recent purchase. Clothes, I set up long periods of no shopping when I decide I don't need anything. There are things I don't need to worry about, like shoes or kitchen things, I don't feel drawn to collect them so I need no framework to moderate it.

I'm pondering my next stage of life from a minimalist point of view. I'm currently living in a bedroom at my parents and have my stuff packed and piled in various areas of this house and some still in randwick. So it's a bit rich to be calling myself a minimalist while, actually, I have stuff that I don't need all boxed up and I'm benefitting from the surplus space my parents own in a non-minimalist way. But I think it's more economical to store for a while than cull and rebuy/scavenge 6months later. I'm preparing myself though for when I have my next place, probably larger than my past homes, to resist the temptation to fill it. One of the agents at an inspection asked me "nest or invest?" And the concept of nesting irks me, although it's not wicked, I just think I want to restrain myself, at least until I see if I'm staying here long term or not. It would be a little devo actually, to get a place, paint it, buy things from vintage shops etc, just to lose my job, move out again, rent the place, and go back to flat sharing in a city again. So minimalism is going to guard me from nesting too excitedly/expensively. I'm going to try and just enjoy having my own space and sharing it with my parrot and very little else.

Update on house shopping: Taking a break. Will look again in September. If nothing comes up before my loan pre-approval expires, I'll let it go until next year I think, probably after my work contract ends so that I know if I'm staying on here or not. Cos it's not really worth it to move into a place for a couple of months, if I end up looking for a new job. Anyway that's then; right now, on the one hand I'm getting a bit tired of living "temporarily". I'm starting to accumulate a mental list of things I can do when I unpack such-and-such, or when I have my own whatever. But on the other hand I'm also tired of looking at places, working out if I want to live there, working out my offer, waiting to hear back, and thinking about it all the time. I will try and get on with other things, whatever they may be. Also, once I've paid my car off I will be able to save my monies again. I think that will make me feel like I'm doing some thing useful.