A friend of mine is an extreme minimalist. The following is his story. Is he going too far or should more of us strive to be as ecofriendly?
"Its been a step-by-step proces but it seems that over the past 5 years or so I have evolved into a very extreme minimalist.
At its height:
-No TV
-No Car
-No computer
-No Refridgerator (unplugged it)
-Got rid of 95% of furniture (kept mattress on floor and a chair to sit on)
-VERY little electricity. My bill was about $14/month while others in the condo building were $200+.
-Diet limited to eating whatever I could consume that had no funny ingredients in it and costed no more than $2 per day, before sales taxes.
-No lighting except for the screen of my cell phone at night to read
-No heating
-No air conditioning
My possessions consisted of clothes, a pot, a wooden spoon, toiletries, bed, chair, cell phone, I would use the stove to cook, never refridgerated anything, got around with a $28/month bus pass or walk, tried a bicycle but didnt like it and returned it, I would wash my clothes in the condo building washing machine but hang up clothes to dry (saved $.75 per week), access the internet at the library, if it got too hot that I would wake up with sweat inside my ears (that scares me because I think its going to cause an ear infection) I would sleep under the ceiling fan and turn it on, when it got to cold (snow outside) I bought a heated blanket and slept on top of it. The windows were open year round except for when it was raining.
At its height I had lost 50 lbs from the diet restrictions and having to walk about 10 miles a day. 6'1 160lbs. My family thought that I had AIDS and other people had wondered if I had a drug problem. Id try to eat as much variety as I could but I guess it didnt look too healthy subsiting mostly off a can of vegetables cooked with a mug of rice each day. So I had to ease the diet restrictions somewhat and am back to normal in many ways but the desire to return to that still lingers. Its actually very comforting having nothing.
I moved myslef for about 2 months into a homeless shelter to see if that was an improvement but it was not. I liked having only a mat on the floor and how its like 300 people in one building (it uses less resources) but there were some virtue issues with that croud. That and they require the people to sit through church service and the building was climate controlled.
So all that was as far as I got but I think im ready to take this to the next step. There are some comforts that I want to get rid of, mainly: living in a town, inside a building, getting around on the public bus, using a stove, buying food at a grocery store, cooking food, warm water, etc.
What I have in mind:
-Get a plot of land, perhaps 40 acres? Hopefully in a place that is not too cold, not too hot, not too dry and not too wet and no illegal immigrants sprinting by. (maybe someone out there could advise me on how much land I would need for subsistence and privacy because I really dont know)
-Live in a tent, probably a large one that I can stand up in.
-Get a donkey for transportation. I like them more than horses, horses move around too much on their own but donkeys just stand there and stare off into space.
-Plant my own food and subsist off that, probably just eat it all raw. I imagine id have to buy food in the winter or learn about canning.
-Get chickens for eggs and goats for milk, id probably have to boil the eggs but some people eat raw eggs so maybe id get used to that and then pretty much everything I eat would be raw.
-No cows. I dont like them because they are big and scary looking.
-fish in a river or lake if I can get land close enough to one, I imagine id have to cook the fish? Is there a such thing as river sushi?
-I want to get rid of cell phone but too many things assume a telephone number but I may take a little trip and knock on an amish family's door and ask them how they handle the telephone issue. If I have to say im amish I guess I could do that but im really not.
-get water from a well with a hand pump I imagine. Brita filter.
-Access the internet from public computers but im thinking that if I am too remote from one I would settle wiht a laptop and get solar panels but that idea gives me a bad taste.
Im writing all this out to solicit thoughts about this. In teh last year I had relaxed things, recently bought a $1000 car and a laptop while I search for land but I really want to get rid of them as soon as possible. There have been some great philosophical advantages of reducing one's life down to nothing. For example - watching all the fat people driving around in their cars trying to figure out why they are so fat. They pay for the car, the gym, the gas to get to the gym, the slim fast and the weight loss pills. They have to work more to pay for these things. All the while they wonder why they are broke and have no free time."
"Its been a step-by-step proces but it seems that over the past 5 years or so I have evolved into a very extreme minimalist.
At its height:
-No TV
-No Car
-No computer
-No Refridgerator (unplugged it)
-Got rid of 95% of furniture (kept mattress on floor and a chair to sit on)
-VERY little electricity. My bill was about $14/month while others in the condo building were $200+.
-Diet limited to eating whatever I could consume that had no funny ingredients in it and costed no more than $2 per day, before sales taxes.
-No lighting except for the screen of my cell phone at night to read
-No heating
-No air conditioning
My possessions consisted of clothes, a pot, a wooden spoon, toiletries, bed, chair, cell phone, I would use the stove to cook, never refridgerated anything, got around with a $28/month bus pass or walk, tried a bicycle but didnt like it and returned it, I would wash my clothes in the condo building washing machine but hang up clothes to dry (saved $.75 per week), access the internet at the library, if it got too hot that I would wake up with sweat inside my ears (that scares me because I think its going to cause an ear infection) I would sleep under the ceiling fan and turn it on, when it got to cold (snow outside) I bought a heated blanket and slept on top of it. The windows were open year round except for when it was raining.
At its height I had lost 50 lbs from the diet restrictions and having to walk about 10 miles a day. 6'1 160lbs. My family thought that I had AIDS and other people had wondered if I had a drug problem. Id try to eat as much variety as I could but I guess it didnt look too healthy subsiting mostly off a can of vegetables cooked with a mug of rice each day. So I had to ease the diet restrictions somewhat and am back to normal in many ways but the desire to return to that still lingers. Its actually very comforting having nothing.
I moved myslef for about 2 months into a homeless shelter to see if that was an improvement but it was not. I liked having only a mat on the floor and how its like 300 people in one building (it uses less resources) but there were some virtue issues with that croud. That and they require the people to sit through church service and the building was climate controlled.
So all that was as far as I got but I think im ready to take this to the next step. There are some comforts that I want to get rid of, mainly: living in a town, inside a building, getting around on the public bus, using a stove, buying food at a grocery store, cooking food, warm water, etc.
What I have in mind:
-Get a plot of land, perhaps 40 acres? Hopefully in a place that is not too cold, not too hot, not too dry and not too wet and no illegal immigrants sprinting by. (maybe someone out there could advise me on how much land I would need for subsistence and privacy because I really dont know)
-Live in a tent, probably a large one that I can stand up in.
-Get a donkey for transportation. I like them more than horses, horses move around too much on their own but donkeys just stand there and stare off into space.
-Plant my own food and subsist off that, probably just eat it all raw. I imagine id have to buy food in the winter or learn about canning.
-Get chickens for eggs and goats for milk, id probably have to boil the eggs but some people eat raw eggs so maybe id get used to that and then pretty much everything I eat would be raw.
-No cows. I dont like them because they are big and scary looking.
-fish in a river or lake if I can get land close enough to one, I imagine id have to cook the fish? Is there a such thing as river sushi?
-I want to get rid of cell phone but too many things assume a telephone number but I may take a little trip and knock on an amish family's door and ask them how they handle the telephone issue. If I have to say im amish I guess I could do that but im really not.
-get water from a well with a hand pump I imagine. Brita filter.
-Access the internet from public computers but im thinking that if I am too remote from one I would settle wiht a laptop and get solar panels but that idea gives me a bad taste.
Im writing all this out to solicit thoughts about this. In teh last year I had relaxed things, recently bought a $1000 car and a laptop while I search for land but I really want to get rid of them as soon as possible. There have been some great philosophical advantages of reducing one's life down to nothing. For example - watching all the fat people driving around in their cars trying to figure out why they are so fat. They pay for the car, the gym, the gas to get to the gym, the slim fast and the weight loss pills. They have to work more to pay for these things. All the while they wonder why they are broke and have no free time."
