Minimalism

For a while I have been bitching about YouTube. Here, here, and here just on this site alone. I’ve moaned about it on Discord and in real life too. My main gripes are it’s all AI slop and there’s nothing worth discovering on the homepage of the site anymore. You could keep scrolling and never hit anything worth watching anymore. Unfortunately this didn’t seem to dissuade me from trying anyway. I found myself mindlessly typing the domain in the address bar only to tumble down this list of pointless video thumbnails never actually clicking anything to watch. I could do this for far longer than I’d care to admit to. And I did often. ...

So you’ve now got yourself a dumb phone. You bought an e-reader for reading and an old iPod for them tunes. You’ve deleted Candy Crush—I worry that reference is old as fuck now—and instead you’ve gotten yourself a small gaming handheld, be it a vintage Game Boy or one of those cool new AliExpress ones. You jot down whatever’s important on trusty old paper, in that little book you’ve got in your back pocket. Along with it you obviously got a pen. A special pen, perhaps one you meticulously picked out. It might even be a fountain pen. ...

I recently noticed myself wanting stuff, then thinking on it only to realize I didn’t really. It’s like ADHD greed and I blame YouTube. Anyway, this got me thinking. What do I own that I really do value? I own things I would replace on the spot if I lost them, but there are also things that couldn’t be replaced. So there are things I value enough to acquire them a second time, but there are also things I value more. Things that cannot be replaced. ...

I have too much shit. It’s been 40 years of me gathering it and storing it. On my dad dying I inherited even more shit. Shit that’s even harder to part with. I like a bare environment. My living room sports two couches, a coffee table, a tv dresser with a tv and sound bar, a large closet, a dinner table, six chairs, a sideboard, two plants a lamp and a statue. That’s it. There are no more furnishings. No clutter, no fluff. Well, ok—the two sofa’s each have two pillows. I had to fight the wife to get it down to four total. Oh, and the house came with a wood burner, which I’ve placed a stand with a set of tools like thongs, a poker, brush and scoop next to. There’s also a single photo frame on the large closet with six photos too. We also have a decorative samovar on the wood burner. Still, when comparing to living rooms of people I know, mine—well ours is quite sparse. A better example; the bedroom. All it has is a bed, a dresser, two nightstands and a wooden ladder on which the wife hangs clothes in between clean and dirty (don’t ask, I have no clue). In the kitchen there’s a breadbox, salt, pepper, oil and a coffee maker on my counters. Oh, and a fruitbowl. ...