A Primer On Minimalism

minimalism

/ˈmɪnɪməˌlɪz(ə)m/

noun

1. a movement in sculpture and painting which arose in the 1950s, characterized by the use of simple, massive forms.

2. an avant-garde movement in music characterized by the repetition of very short phrases which change gradually, producing a hypnotic effect.

3. deliberate lack of decoration or adornment in style or design.

Minimalism, as a philosophy has attracted me for quite some time. I have been a follower, reader and if my friends are to be believed, a vocal supporter of the minimal way of life. First started as a movement in art and music, it is now found in almost every aspect of life you can imagine. 

Minimalism can have different connotations for different people. For me, it means hoarding less stuff and doing more with less. It also means removing clutter and waste from my life - things like stress, bad influences, poor connections. This leaves me with only the things that matter, which add value to my life. 

If you are interested in exploring about this philosophy, here are a few points which might come in handy to get you started.

1.Buying less stuff - Let’s just get this out of the way. Minimalism by definition means making do with lesser stuff. It might sound cynical to say but we’ve been conditioned to consume. A visit to the mall yesterday reminded me of the lure of buying more stuff. I was impressed by all the shiny stuff on display around me and felt like buying things I didn’t need or the ones I already have. Now, there is not a problem with that per se. But, the problem arises when this ‘stuff’ doesn’t add value in your life and takes away valuable time, energy and money from things and experiences which actually matter, which brings me to my next point.

2. Spend on experiences, not things - There is a brilliant 5 minute clip of George Carlin where he talks about our hoarding culture. We spend our lives hoarding stuff and buying more of it wherever we go. We have to do that because we can’t carry our stuff everywhere we go. Whereas, your experiences travel with you wherever you go and help you grow as a person. Stuff fades away but the memories of great experiences linger on. 

3. Removing excess baggage - Realise that you are a tiny part of something huge at play. The stress you carry, the worries that you have, the emotional baggage that bogs you down and your problems are of no consequence in the grand scheme of things - not only on the scale of universe but on the scale of your own life. Worry itself is wasteful but if it is actionable then it could be good - so choose your battles carefully. You only have so much energy, spend it on contemplating about the things that matter a lot to you.

4. Deeper rather than wider - There is way too much stuff in the world for us to consume. Too many books to read, so many movies to watch, many places to see and a lot to learn. My idea is that there is a bigger joy in immersing yourself completely in one single thing rather than superficially scanning tens of them. The world is designed with plenty for each to learn in her own path of choosing. The knowledge from one book is equal to what you get in 100 books together or from one each of them. It is a matter of how you perceive it. A moonlit evening can be romantic to the heart which is full of love or can feel lonely to a troubled mind. It is a matter of how you look at it. 

5. Focus - This has become one of my favorite words recently. Focus on only the things that matter. Our tiny attention spans have a way of moving us about in different directions. Give more to one single activity, you are probably going to enjoy it more. Read less but deeply engage with it. Watch a movie and imagine yourself becoming the character. Project yourself how it would feel in the stadium while watching a match on the screen. Immerse yourself, become them.

6. Prioritize - We are all capable human beings who want to do a lot in our lives. I, for one know that I want to do multiple stuff - write, cook, click pictures, play guitar, learn Spanish and a host of other things. But, the structure of our lives doesn’t allow us to do so many things all at once. So, learning to prioritize helps. Saying ‘NO’ to things is as important, if not more, to choosing which ones to say ‘YES’ to. And if these priorities change over time, that’s fine. 

Leading a minimal life has helped me reduce stress, become more fulfilled and be happier in general. I am not an accomplished minimal guy but am getting there. So, this post is to remind me how to get there as much as it is to inform you. I hope these steps help you get started on your path to minimalism if you like to. And, if you do, I hope it brings you as much happiness in your life as much as it has in mine. 

Further Reading:

What is Minimalism by The Minimalists

Minimalists FAQs by Leo Babauta 

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Doing is a state of being

I have been obsessed with the idea of being for quite some time now. I have spoken about this in some of my posts and have had some understanding of this concept. But, it is only recently that I have realised that I understood it all wrong. 

Poster in a friend’s room. 

Earlier, when I thought of ‘being’ as a concept, I imagined a life where I am not doing anything, just lying around engrossed in my own thoughts and observing the world around me. I did that for some time and enjoyed it. But, soon I realised that this is not the idea of being. Make no mistake, for others, what I just described could be a perfect way of existence, but its just not for me.

For me, ‘Doing’ is a state of ‘Being’. I like being in the midst of action, being aware, making things happen, producing more than consuming. I realised this the hard way when I wasn’t particularly happy with the state of affairs. I procrastinated, dilly dallied on the things that needed to be done. Feeling productive is a great feeling, it almost makes you feel as if your existence has a purpose. And that is why I wrote this post - to remind myself when I am feeling lazy that beyond the laziness, beyond the comfort zone, there is a much better feeling. 

Of course I am saying this right now because my mind seeks conflict. It might happen that after a few months of doing, I might feel like going back to not doing anything and being. But for now, I am good with ‘Doing is a state of being’ principle.

Simplifying Reading Habits

Recently, I’ve been in a constant quest to simplify my life. Reducing clutter and keeping only the things that interest me the most, the ones which add the most value in my life instead of aimlessly consuming everything that comes my way has been my intention. I want to control my life and the experiences I get. Doing this but without sacrificing the chance serendipitous moment is also to be taken care of.

One of the biggest things in that regard is controlling what I read. I’ve been an information junkie for as long as I can remember. From Pustak Mahal’s amazing series of Children’s Knowledge Bank which I used to buy from the book stalls on railway platforms, buying books from the Scholastic book fairs held at my school to the Internet. Consuming information feels good to me, it helps me grow. But, there are days when you feel as if you’ve consumed so much but at the end of the day you still feel hollow. That is why I have decided to control what I read. Hence, now, I’ve unsubscribed myself from all reading lists except a few. These are the few blogs which I admire and like to learn from.

1. Aeon Magazine - In this fast paced world of fast food articles, Aeon is slow journalism. They publish just one single, in depth, well researched article from the subject matter experts a day. Covering various genres, it is one of the best places to get an introduction on some new subject.

2. Zenhabits - It is a perfect, simple blog by Leo Babuta. A one man show, it has quickly become one of the most visited blogs on the internet. Leo’s daily insights from his life experiences are deeply thought provocative. One of his write ups, which is also pinned on his home page is Breathe and I absolutely swear by it.

3. The Minimalists - I have been a fan of minimalism philosophy and these guys are living it where we just dream about it. They are guys just like us who used to hoard stuff earlier but have now realised the importance of keeping only the stuff that matters and nothing else.

4. Art of Manliness - A man’s guide to everything manly. Need I say more?

5. Books - Not restricted to any particular category, but reading books is always a pleasure to get lost into. It takes time, but you come out of it feeling as if you have learnt something which is going to stay with you for longer than just any random article on the internet.

6. Hacker News - A geek’s default place for everything that is new, groundbreaking and exciting. Comments from the contributors are equally and sometimes even more informative than the articles themselves.

7. Mark Manson - Mark is a digital entrepreneur who has travelled the world and shares his experience in well written, insightful articles. No fluff, pure gold.

Having written this article, I feel that even this list is a little much and I need to cut down. I probably will. I hope you find some of these sites as useful as I do.

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First drafts are always crappy

Recently, some of my friends were fretting about the brand new redesign of their website. They were comparing it to Musicfellas and thought that theirs wasn’t good (which in opinion was actually way too good for the first version). It caused them grief and a little sadness. They were anxious. What they had forgotten was that they were comparing something which was a result of over 6 months of painstakingly discussing and sometimes even fighting over the minutest of details with something which was put out in a few days.

It’s not just them. I had been procrastinating on writing a short article for a friend’s blog for quite some time myself. I had a fear of imperfection. I didn’t realise one key point - first drafts are always crappy.

Things improve over time:

We don’t see how many pages a writer has torn apart to produce that great novel.

We don’t see the many erroneous brush strokes behind that final masterpiece.

We don’t see the multiple wrong notes before that final perfect one which makes a genius piece of music.

We don’t see the many changes in the color, size or placement of a button on a website before the final version.

And this can be overwhelming, depressing and a lot of times demotivating.  

Biz Stone, Twitter Co-Founder, once famously said: “Timing, perseverance, and ten years of trying will eventually make you look like an overnight success." Overnight success stories and get famous/rich/better quick is what we want. But, we forget that the people who seem be able to do that, have achieved it over a period of time. 

At Musicfellas, we didn’t get great (that’s what people have said) at design from the day one. Our first versions were almost embarrassing. It took us time, patience and constant perseverance to achieve what we did.

So, if you feel like you are creating less than awesome stuff to start with, realise that it is natural. You are already way ahead of so many people who haven’t even started something. You are in the top 1% of creators (completely made up stat). For you to achieve perfection, it is completely OK to take time.

Be aware that beautiful things, and the best ones at that, emerge incrementally.

Added bonus: Have a look at some of the earliest versions of the most popular websites in the world and see how they have evolved and gotten better with time: Wayback Machine.

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Drive

I drive down to Noida from Gurgaon and back quite often. If you know anything about that route, you would know how perennially congested that route is. The traffic moves painfully slowly and it feels that all the jerks have decided to come onto the road to drive(including me, I guess). Bikes zoom in an out with absolutely no concept of safety whatsoever. When you are driving a car, you curse the bikers and when you drive a bike, you curse the cars. Anyway, I digress.

So, on one such Friday night, I was driving in this God forsaken mess of a traffic and I couldn’t help but smile. You see, THIS is life, every second of it, every moment whether good or bad. It is this particular moment that you are reading this, is your life. It is not tomorrow, not the day that has gone by but right here, right now. Even our brain interprets it that way, it is “science, bitch!" 

More often that, I am grumpy about the traffic. If I meet someone who travels the same route, we talk about it like some long lost friends - a sense of camaraderie emerges. The traffic, hence, takes up more of your life than the travelling time. But it is up to you to choose if you want that to happen.

Sometimes, you can choose what you get from life, at other times you can’t. But, at all times, you can always choose your reaction to it. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to be happy in every moment, but being aware is a good place to start. Just notice that every moment is YOUR life. It is not waiting for you at the end of the road. It is happening right now, every single moment. Smile, you are LIVING :)

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Fear of imperfection

Ever since I last wrote, I’ve been trying hard to write something and publish it for people to see but haven’t been able to because of a fear of imperfection in what I write. Actually, it happens a lot. I like to believe I am a perfectionist, not that I am, but I’d like to believe so. Or atleast that I am striving towards it. A fear of producing something perfect was preventing me from doing something which is good. 

In the last week, I drafted a lot of articles on many different ideas but I just couldn’t publish them. I wrote on things which were important to me, which moved me but I wasn’t happy with what I had written. I knew it could have been better. 

The definition of perfect here is something that I feel proud of producing, I feel good about and could be at peace with. Although, we all do stuff seeking an acknowledgement of the world around us or of ourselves, it eventually comes down how that makes us feel. It gives us a feeling of being able to create something, of adding value, of playing our part in this entirely meaningless, long drawn out game of life that someone is enjoying at our behest. If we are characters in a game, we might as well have fun while doing it. 

I recently read the book The Spy who came in from the Cold by John le Carre (great spy novel, completely different from what you would expect in a spy mystery) which propelled the author into stardom. The author later reflects that his life of comfort was now over. Anything that he ever produces again would always be pried and judged upon by eyes of the world. The activity that brought him joy had suddenly lost its innocence.

I am not sure that how he was able to deal with it but I am trying to internalise it. Instead of waiting for the end product, I want to enjoy the process, every moment of writing, whether I publish it or not is a different matter altogether. And if I do decide to publish it, it is fine if it is crappy. Things get better with time. 

After all, what bothers us the most, what keeps us await at night are not the things that we did but we wish we could have done. 

How do you guys deal with, if it exists, your struggle for perfection? (I also realised, leaving a blog post with a question is a good way to end when you don’t know how to end it).

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Illusions | Haiku

Richard Bach is a master at weaving simple stories into something deeply profound and moving. Illusions was also in my list of the best books I read last year. 

You can swim through walls,

Walk on water,

And everything that is taught in this book could be wrong.

#BookReviews in Haiku

On Illusions - Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah by Richard Bach

Aliens

There is a world which is called Bumics where lives a specie known as Hreathens.

They lead a life listening to music but not like we humans do on earth. Music is the air they breathe in literal terms. They look like us but with a slight yet important difference - they don’t have a nose. Instead, they have a headphone over their heads since birth. That is their life giving element. They don’t breathe but they have to listen to music all the time or else they die.

The way we hold our breaths, they stop listening to music for a small time while changing the batteries of their iPods and stereo systems. If the batteries die out, or their iPod breaks, they have to replace it. But, sometimes they can’t find the replacement at the right time and then they die. At other times, they can’t find the right music for a long time and they feel suffocated which again causes death.

When they want to get high, or they want to entertain themselves and have a good time, they buy a detachable nose, with which they breathe air. For their parties, they buy big containers of air which blows it all around the room. When they are breathing, everything else seems secondary. They are lost in the process of breathing, the fresh air that enters into their body, goes into their lungs and gives them energy. The air takes them somewhere else and they forget that they are Hreathen beings living on the planet Bumics. It takes them to another planet (Earth, maybe). That is also the time when they are actually able to focus on the music.

Hreathens had forgotten that they’ve been listening to music all this while. They had taken it for granted and had lost the joy of listening to music. But, these sessions of breathing helps them realise how simple, yet beautiful is this life giving process to them. They enjoy it, it is almost as if they’ve been hearing the music all the time but this is the first time they have listened to it. They also call it meditation. 

The kids always miss the silent H in the spelling. Their monks ask them the purpose of H in their life. They spend their lifetime finding out that answer. They don’t realise that it is a non existent question. They can very well live without the extra H. But no, their mind, like ours seeks conflict. They can’t let it go.

One day, one of them is breathing some really good air and he feels as if he has been transported into a different world altogether. He feels as if he has become a different specie. Almost human.

This is it. I think I don’t know more about them. I will come back with more information once my thought changes.

Do you think we become them for brief moments when we are listening to music and can focus on our breathing for the first time?

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How an acquisition feels like

The story of your life is covered in the many books that stand upon the bookshelf of a beautiful young woman. She has read some, some she wants to but hasn’t found the right moment to. And then there are some which are still to come to her but she doesn’t know it yet.

She has read many books in her life, mostly the classics or the popular ones which everyone should read, as she has been told. And she enjoyed them but nothing touched her, nothing called out to her soul. Maybe it was because they’ve been read and recommended by everyone around her. The novelty in those novels is lost on her. 

Then one mysterious night, when the creatures of the dark come out, she finds a book which she finds calls out to her. It is a rare one which she hasn’t seen too many people reading. She doesn’t know how this is going to turn out because she hasn’t heard too many of her friends telling her how it goes. It is one which she knows a little about but she couldn’t help but open and start reading it, one page at a time.

She takes her time to read through every single page. Every single page is a different story. It feels to her as if each page was written just for her. That if there was any life she wanted to live, that story would be it. And it happens again and again, at every single page, every sentence, even every word. Every grammatical error adds to the beauty of the book. Every misprint feels like it was meant to be that way. 

The books goes on and she finds herself engrossed in it. Detached from her world which she thought she belonged to until then and attached to the new one she has discovered, but always longed for, in the book. She feels different emotions - love, surprise, disgust, delight.  

And then it ends.

When the book ends, she reminisces about how the book was. She, like most other people, has a bias of remembering only good things about the past and even the bad bits with a fondness. She has forgotten the agony of some really painful chapters in the book. There is only the lingering on sensation of a story well told.

She doesn’t know what comes next. She wonders if anything she picks up again is going to be as beautiful, as amazing. She doesn’t know yet. 

She has too many options from which to pick the next one up.

Reaching the end feels like an accomplishment. There is a sense of closure. She wants to tell her friends how the book was because she loved it so much. But, she’s not sure about it because not a lot of her friends would connect to it, atleast she feels that way.

There is a sense of ending to it. A relief comes over her which engulfs her almost ready to perish her. Fulfillment. Satisfaction. Completeness. 

That’s how I feel. Reference

As a sidenote: What if, the story was about you. How would you like it to be? If you could watch your whole life unfold from a distance afar, would you prefer it to end quickly so that you could find out what happens at the end or would you prefer to savor each and every moment slowly in the constant fear that the story might end too soon.

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BookReview - Siddhartha | Hermann Hesse

At the outset, let me tell you what I knew about the book before picking it up - It is one of the most influential spiritual works of the 20th century, was highly recommended to me by a friend (this one) who had bought her own copy after reading a borrowed one and the book had an Introduction by Paulo Coelho.

To cut the story short, the book came to me with high levels of expectation. Naturally, I was a little skeptical - rebellion against the natural state of things is, for better or for worse, a habit I have since as far as I can remember. So, I started reading and I finished it. I don’t remember much else during those two days.

I was amazed by the ease at which Siddhartha explains the most important questions of life - why we are here, what we are doing here, what is the One single truth - basically, the whole existentialism phenomena. And what’s beautiful is the way Hermann Hesse expresses it.

A lot of spiritual books give you deep, complex concepts and theories and try to explain them to you in easier ways using analogies of real life. But, Siddhartha is different. It takes all these spirtiual concepts and theories as a matter of fact. It treats you with respect in assuming that you will understand. There are no long winding passages on theory of time, space and spirituality. Instead, it explains the beauty and the true meaning in our daily lives and what we feel - love, passion, knowledge, anger, lust etc. It touches upon each one of them and more and treats them with an utmost care.

Siddhartha guides you through the life of a man seeking answers only to tell you that it is not seeking you should do, finding is the answer. That was the most powerful statement for me. Let me say it again: ‘Finding is important, not seeking’. Excuse my paraphrasing. When you seek, you are looking for something, that takes away your mind from so many other beautiful things in life that might come your way. Instead, go finding with an open eye because you never know what you might find.

The book is so relatable that I am sure every one of you would be able to live Siddhartha’s life - inspite or perhaps because of it being so simple. I am not sure if this is the kind of book you might want to draw conclusions out of. I did and am damn happy I could. These are what they are: 

What goes around comes back around - just this simple realisation could help us be more empathetic, compassionate and an overall nice person.

Unconditional love is the most beautiful and maybe painful thing in the world - love of a father for his son kind of stuff.

The most important knowledge can never be taught, it has to be experienced.

You can find your spiritual guide in rivers, birds or trees  - they all speak to you. Just be a good listener. 

Before the start of the post, I was going to suggest you to pick up this book after you’ve already delved into spiritual thinking a bit. But, I’ve changed my mind now. Read it whenever you like :)

Now, I think I’ll have to buy my own copy.

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