My gut feeling is you are about to learn something about narcissistic newspaper writers and lack of accuracy.
My gut feeling is you are about to learn something about narcissistic newspaper writers and lack of accuracy.
In addition to minimalism perhaps we should also start a new movement called "dumpy old cr@pism" (DOCism) or "dumpy old junkism" to be polite. Like people have a fantasy of what minimalist houses looks like inside, very pretty and stuff (in-arguably easy to clean, but maybe more to it than that). But if you are really truly dedicated to non-consumerism what stuff you have (whether it's a lot or not, even it's just a small amount of stuff, the "junk" or other epithet isn't meant to imply it's a lot of stuff) might be pretty dumpy as you aren't often replacing it.
An advocate of DOCism will be like: "yea these towels came from my parents house when I moved out (yea I could get newer ones at the thrift shop but that would mean *wasting* these existing ones and they still work), yea the blankets and sheets as well. Yea the furniture is Ikea bought in my early 20s (it very well may last decades, even though it's not the best stuff ever made of course, it can last longer than you think). Yea the pots and pans are whatever cheap made in China stuff I got at the same time (although if they are toxic like Teflon or something, that's an argument for replacement, but if they aren't then ...). Yea it's a cheap lamp I have in my living room, I picked up for my dorm when I was 19. Yea it's an old dumpy sofa. Yea ok so most things around here are pretty dumpy and picked long before I had any taste of my own or really any taste whatsoever, but I am a "dumpy old cr@pist" see ... I practice a principled non-consumerist philosophy called "DOCism" and reject the siren call to buy new things".
I mean seriously I weigh having nicer things with rejection of consumerism and err toward the latter. I have a decent amount of DOC that still suffices. I like to get new things sometimes too, there is some enjoyment in it. But if you really reject consumerism, then although it has less appeal than catchy phrases like "minimalism", it's often about accepting dumpy old junk for the things you have if it still suffices (not sure I'd advocate this for personal appearance like clothes as the external world judges much more harshly on that - but only people you select to will ever see your abode anyway).
Trees don't grow on money
ANM: I think about this sometimes, kind of, but I love the way you've expressed it. I'm not a "serial upgrader," but I take the aesthetics of my environment very seriously, probably too seriously. I always have a vision of the "perfect" whatever in my head, and that's what I need to find. Once I have it, I am good and don't want to change things with the season, or changing fashions or anything. It's definitely not conducive to frugality or minimalism.
The Beauty of having DOC is that you don't have to protect it from theft, damage, or loss. Life has less worry when you really don't care about much stuff.
We call that style "early American attic". As in, the stuff your relatives wanted to get rid of. we raised three kids in a house furnished primarily in "early American attic". Although some of it was "midcentury curb"
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