I have always been a slave of consumerism. For example, I do not own a car and I do not
intend to own one in near future, my thought is, I would better travel 20 more countries instead.
I am in the process of breaking myself free from consumerism (inspired by Richard
Proenneke) and embrace minimalism. There were few more blogs that I have been
closely following on minimalism, but I could easily make out that they follow minimalism for the heck of following it but I enjoy every
bit of it. I have been carried away by Richard Proenneke's craftsmanship, work ethic,
simplicity, self-sufficiency and his ability to break free from societal conformity
of . Importantly, being at peace with himself all the while,
nonchalantly. Very importantly,
he was not running away from anything. He was not an escapist. He was not
anti-social unlike Chris McCandless of “into the wild” whome we sympathize. The simple essence that
took me away was, It takes 1 year for me to save 6 lakhs to buy a car, 10 or 20
years to buy an apartment. When I talk about years I am talking about exchanging those
many days of my life to commute in a machine which a public transport could
have done without much of hassle or build 4 walls around me... so the question
is, Is this what I really want? And only I can answer that question. Secondly I
was (and so many of you as well) leading an empty life chasing wrong things,
just because my peers and societal conformity asked for it. Hence I chose not
to go for branded clothing, unwanted gadgets.. etc. What I really want is to
stay on the road as long as possible watching different cultures, making new
friends and tasting different cuisines of the world (this is purely my need). I
am no Osho or any gigantic saint the world has seen so far, but I am at the
process of de-addicting myself from the things the society has tried to force
me to be, a consumer.
My definition
of minimalism is the obsession for owning less,
- Stuff I really need
- Stuff I really enjoy owning
- In quantities of optimal usage.
I am in the process of removing stuff that does not fit into
any of these categories. This does not mean I am giving up materialistic
pleasures. I feel much lighter by giving away the stuff I do not intend to use
apart from the fixed assets that is shared by my entire family like, TV.. etc
and the belongings that does not please me but pleases my peers.
