More Minimal

Time to say goodbye

To be honest, I expected this to be a relaunch post. But that’s not how things worked out.

Over the past couple of weeks, I tidied up More Minimal with the intention of reviving it with a somewhat more personal tone. The site got a new layout and technical overhaul — even a new logo, which I’ve since replaced with the original. Then I set about writing some fresh material.

My problem is this: The fresh material doesn’t seem very fresh to me. It continued to lapse into the style and vocabulary of what passes for a “minimalist” blog these days. Pretty uninteresting.

A little about minimalism

I’ve been writing about minimalism at this address since 2006 — long before people debated the subtle differences between minimalism and simple living, arbitrarily whittled their possessions down to 100 Things, and before minimalist bloggers began trying to make a living by being minimalists.

So it’s not surprising that More Minimal stubbornly insists on being a minimalist blog. Websites are like people: defined, in large part, by their their heritage and environment. More Minimal is what it is.

As am I. My views haven’t changed. If anything, I’ve become more committed to a simpler lifestyle, giving up my car and continuing to explore ways to economize, downsize, and generally tread with a lighter footstep upon the planet. That being said, I have become uncomfortable with the direction minimalism has taken over the past year or so, and no longer wish to devote a site to the topic.

Dharma Bums

To me, the philosophy of minimalism is fairly straightforward. Reduce your consumption. Of everything: resources, products — even your time. In the West (and particularly in the United States), we’ve spent the last 50 years building a Consumerist economy which demands perpetually expanding Gross Domestic Product and dirt-cheap energy. These times, they are a-changin’. As I wrote last November, it’s not just individuals who will have to embrace the ideals of minimalism, but the whole of society.

So minimalism (or simpler living, or downshifting — whatever you care to call it) must be for everyone. We’re a pretty diverse lot, with people in a vast range of economic and family conditions, places, and employment. But to read some minimalists, you’d think we’re a nation of childless, 20-something information workers, living out of backpacks and Macbooks as we commute between $500-a-chair seminars on how to blog our way to financial independence.

There are not many people who would want or be able to live this manner. Of course, if you fancy yourself a latter day Jack Kerouac, you won’t find the Road online. Just call Goodwill to come pick up your stuff, drop your car keys on the kitchen table, and walk out the front door. May your adventures be happy ones. Perhaps I’ll do the same someday.

What’s next for me

In the meantime, there’s work to be done. I think my job has gotten a little clearer since Earth Day. Living on the Gulf of Mexico, I need only bike a few minutes down to Pensacola Beach to see the sad environmental consequence of our country’s unsustainable petroleum addiction.

Most of the stuff currently washing ashore would have gone into someone’s gas tank. In a sense, we are driving ourselves to death. It’s not just the ecological risks of oil exploration, the likelihood that worldwide demand for petroleum will soon outstrip the discovery of new reserves, or the almost abstract number of Americans who die in automobile crashes each year (some 34,000 in 2009). It’s something people can readily understand: the literal cost of car ownership.

The average American shelled out over $5,000 for the privilege of owning a private automobile last year. That’s a heavy burden, though it could be lightened by cycling, mass transit, and intelligent urban design. Getting people out of cars won’t be easy, nor will the task likely be finished on my watch. But I think it would be a fine expression of minimalism. My next major project will be about carfree living, and it will debut before summer’s end.

ecoMinima

I’ll be launching a new site soon: ecoMinima. It’s not a continuation of More Minimal, but a new (and very simple) personal journal. I will publish a short note here when ecoMinima is online.

More Minimal will remain until I decide what to do with its content. The site’s Facebook group will close at the end of the week.

Thank you for reading. Consume less, and live well.

Jack Kerouac image by Tom Palumbo, distributed under a Creative Commons license.

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