Minimalism As Optimization

When I hear criticism of minimalism and minimalist living, one word keeps coming up again and again--BORING. Minimalism is boring. Hell, even I made this criticism. But I changed from that mindset. I saw minimalism as the answer to a lot of problems that I was having. Unfortunately, solutions tend to breed new problems, and minimalism does breed the problem of boredom.

The best illustration I have ever read about minimalism versus maximalism came from a minimalist blogger who I have repeatedly tried to find on Google but failed. His illustration had to do with alpine mountain climbing versus expedition mountain climbing. In the expedition style, you set up a base camp, bring in a lot of gear, hire a bunch of sherpas, bring supplemental oxygen, and lay siege to the mountain. This would be the maximalist approach.

In the alpine style, you take only essential gear. You rely on your fitness and knowledge more than your gear. You climb light, and you knock off the summit fast. This would be the minimalist approach.

Which way of climbing is best? That is hard to say. There are virtues to each approach as well as drawbacks. They accomplish the same end, but it seems to me that the alpine style is more optimized. It accomplishes the same end with fewer resources. This to me is the point of minimalism.

The purpose of life is to be happy which I define as flourishing. This is a life of meaningful and purposeful activity. This is a life of flow. Like climbing a mountain, you can take a maximalist or a minimalist approach to accomplishing the goal. Both achieve the same end, but I see the minimalist way as the more optimized approach.

The maximalist makes big plans. In order to achieve these big plans, the maximalist requires time, money, and energy. So, the maximalist puts together vast schedules and lists and whatnot. The maximalist needs lots of money to do stuff. The answer is to make more money. The maximalist buys thing from McMansions to cars to whatnot. The result is that the maximalist is never bored. He or she may be stressed out and frustrated but never bored. Pretty soon, life is consumed for the sake of the resources and not the other way around.

The minimalist rejects the big plans. The minimalist discovers that it is easier to use fewer resources than to use more. The minimalist pares down to the essentials. He or she achieves more with less. The result is less frustration. The downside is the boredom. I have mentioned this in previous posts as the syndrome of Post-Minimalist Emptiness. Its cause should be obvious.

Like with mountain climbing, the goal is to reach the summit. Similarly, in life, the goal is to achieve happiness. Happiness is the summit. The reason minimalists experience the boredom is because they take their eyes off this summit. Minimalism becomes the end instead of the means. Simplifying does not create happiness. It merely optimizes the pursuit of happiness.

The dilemma is easily resolved by deciding what makes you happy and then optimizing towards that goal. For me, my leisure time is composed of two main things. I read, and I write. So, I spend money on books and the internet. I do not play golf, so I do not buy golf clubs. But if I did, I would own some golf clubs. The problem is that people end up owning golf clubs, fishing rods, bowling balls, and on and on. This is because they dabble in various things trying to find something to do and accumulate clutter in the process. It is like collecting various items of equipment in the base camp but never climbing the mountain. By deciding what it is that you do and what you don't do, you focus your resources on those items that you need. You optimize.

People become maximalists because they lack focus. They think some additional project will enhance their lives. Then, it just becomes some additional product. Before long, they are working to pay for shit they don't need but still want. This would explain all those Jet Skis collecting dust. The minimalist decides to reduce, so reduction becomes the focus until there is virtually nothing left but boredom. We know why minimalists face boredom. But why are maximalists not bored?

Maximalists are not bored because they are always working. To acquire and maintain all that shit, they have to bust their asses all the time to pay for it, maintain it, and what have you. The things themselves don't bring happiness. It is all that work that brings happiness. If they just kept doing the work but decided not to buy all that shit, they wouldn't have all that frustration, stress, and anxiety. They would just have a shitload of money in the bank.

The opposite of happiness is boredom, and the best cure for boredom is activity. The best activity is work because it is self-sustaining. Minimalists end up bored because many of them are converted maximalists who wanted less stress, less clutter, and greater financial security. There is no end to maximalism, but there is an end to minimalism. Minimalism is a problem solved. The problem for the minimalist is to find a reason to work more that isn't material. That reason is happiness.

I strive to fill each waking moment of my day with meaningful activity. I used to believe that you needed a lot of stuff to do this, but you don't. There is no end to work, so I just work. My day is basically divided between working, doing my chores and errands, reading, and writing. I don't care about travel, vacations, hobbies, riding motorcycles, riding horses, restoring old cars, or any of that. I have done things like that in the past, but the pleasure of these things is short lived as a consequence of the hedonic treadmill. For instance, I have been whitewater rafting three times in my life. I have no interest in doing it anymore. It was momentary fun. The same is true of riding horses or motorcycles. I've done that shit, and it is boring.

Reading good books and writing still appeal to me. I've been doing those things my entire life, and they still do the trick for me. I do those two things so much that they start to affect the rest of my life in a negative way. I suppose you can call this "addiction." I would feel that my life was diminished if I was deprived of this world of words. But I can go the rest of my life without ever having learned to surf.

The biggest issue I have with this is telling other people what I like to do. If you tell people your weekend involved skydiving, hunting for moose, surfing, and partying down at a bar with live music, they look at you with approval. They don't look with the same approval if you tell them you caught up your laundry, wrote three blog posts, and got some work done even if doing those things was actually more satisfying to you than jumping out of a perfectly good airplane. I suspect that most of what we do (and buy) is for the sake of convincing others that we are living the good life.

The minimalist lifestyle will appear outwardly boring to everyone else. But if you live it right, it will be immensely rewarding to you. You are the only person that counts when it comes to happiness. Forget about impressing others and go with what you love. It may be skydiving or stamp collecting or just workaholism. But optimize that life for the sake of this happiness. That is the point of minimalism. This is why less is more.

Posted in: