The first steps towards minimal living.

Stuff

"A house is just a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get more stuff." - George Carlin.

Often I ask myself why I need all that #stuff in my place to be happy.
How hard I try to answer that question, I'll never came to a good excuse for dragging such a mountain of random objects with me trough life, it doesn't make me hugely #happy.

In my experience true happiness is a quite illusive state of mind that suddenly pops up into your life and vanishes with the same flex that it came to you. No point trying to hold on to it, happiness is as fluid as water. It's not something you can glue to an object.

It's true that most stuff in our houses has a #meaning for us but it remains a burden to live with it and keep it orderly stored in an attempt to avoid that your place starts to look like an abandoned storage-room. it's a constant struggle and source of frustration.

That's why I've been cherishing the dream of finding a way to live with the bare minimum of stuff.

Why should having less stuff make you happy ?

"Happiness resides not in possessions, and not in gold, happiness dwells in the soul." – Democritus.

It might be, it requires a lot effort to get and keep a place to store your stuff. Working can be fun but losing the major part of your income to rent or morgage is not something that makes us happy. We may say that too much stuff attacks our freedom to be what we are because it drags us in to working hard for the machine at the cost of losing our free will.

I borrow a bit from #Buddhism by stating that the true natural state of humans is to be kind of happy if we can keep our mind clear and free of distractions. Maybe that's why the beaches are so full, one can be totally focussed on a spotless mind while basking, there ain't much around to think about and it feels good doesn't it ?
From the perspective of zen Buddhists too much of the wrong kind of objects around you will fill your mind with distraction keeping you away from that natural blissful state, let alone the effort to keep it tidy.

I sure would like a bit of bliss in my life and a tidy place would be nice too. So me and my girlfriend made this kind of a collective mission. It might become kind of a soap opera with a lot of setbacks maybe we won't get anywhere any-soon because we're kind of litterbugs. Maybe we'll be smashing each others head with the one hammer we have left in an argument over something we need, costs a lot of money but isn't there anymore. Maybe she leaves me and takes everything with her although I doubt that will ever happen. Altogether enough reason to write mini-series about our joint endeavour.

I'll keep you posted.
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Cyanidesandwich.