The Art of Being Minimalist

Most people live their entire lives in one town, in one house, with one car, with one boring soulsucking day job.

The art of being minimalist has allowed me to live and work from anywhere.

Sometimes work has been lean, sometimes I've made thousands of dollars a month on the Internet. Minimalism prepares you for both realities. Minimalism allows you to boom and bust without losing everything, because you have nothing to lose.

Right now I work as an expo/food runner at a local restaurant in Fayettenam. Sometimes you have to get a job to earn for the next train/plane/mexibus out of here.

Stuff. Things. Crap. Shit. Possessions. All of that junk, it keeps you stagnant. It keeps you from growing. It keeps you from living the life on the edge of your mind that keeps crying out to you 'live me'.

If you want a safe, cushy, mundane life then minimalism is not for you. People ask: where do you sleep?

I've slept on the floor of airports in Chicago, New York, London, Tokyo and Mexico City. I've slept on a yoga matt with a blanket in an empty room in Portland. I've slept on multi-thousand dollar 'pedic mattresses in rentals in San Francisco. I've slept in hotels, and I've slept in 5000 peso apartments on the other side of Insurgentes.

When I go home, my apartment is empty.

Yes, it's a junker. But my rent is $450 USD split two ways. The refreshing thing about this room is that it is empty. Similar to Steve's room.

All of my data fits onto this single USB stick, tied around my neck. Minimalism isn't only about physical possessions, it's also about folders and files. There are digital hoarders too.

My laptop is as minimalist as it gets, with a fresh install of Arch Linux and a copy of the files I keep around my neck.

Not everyone wants to be a minimalist. Minimalism isn't for everyone. It's not for people with a double mortgage and two car garage, holding down a deadend job for the rest of their lives as they pay off the debts that they've been told were the American dream.

Minimalism is a new American dream. In this new American dream you go where you want, and do what you want. A minimalist is invisible.

If you wanted to or had to leave today, what would you take with you? Could you leave with everything you own in a single backpack? Chuck the key into the bushes, and be gone? Or would you need to rent a semi-truck sized UHaul and hire a crew for a day to get everything into and back out of the truck at your destination?

When you're a minimalist, no one knows you're leaving when you leave.

The world is changing. Technology is changing. People are changing. The art of being minimalist is about being flexible enough to change with the world.

A minimalist has come to realize that in the beginning humans carried the tools they needed to do the job on their backs as they roamed the world. Over time the tools have changed. We've upgraded from stone spears to CPUs. And now we're building a digital world.

Bem estar e lazer