Is Minimalism Unnatural?

[Iceplant18]

Seems so many people in America and around the world choose to live a consumerist lifestyle.  I myself did it in my own way for several years.  It was fun.  Just seemed natural.  Right???  I worked as much as I could, purchased fast cars and raced them at the track, bought a house that stretched my budget thin, got superficial admiration from my peers, noticed others doing better than myself and used that to motivate me to work harder and so on. 

One of the distinct characteristics of humans that separates us from the rest of the species on the planet is our ability to rise above our baser instincts.  The ability to choose to follow logic rather than emotions.  I often preach the ways of minimalism to my peers and often get responses attune to "everything you say makes sense, but I don't want to." Perhaps evolution has programed us over the years to consume during times of abundance so that we would have the fat stores for the times of scarcity.  Could such a thing have driven soooo many humans to be the consumerists that sooo many humans have been during this time of abundance?  And make no mistake, this is a time of abundance.  Ever since the industrial revolution we have had it GREAT as a species. 

One thing I can say with certainty is that I wasn't born a minimalist.  Circumstance, education, and contemplation lead me to CHOOSE to be a minimalist.  To cast away what seems like a basic instinct to indulge in whatever I may be capable of consuming immediately.  All because of the conscience belief that I will be better off having made that choice.  A belief founded in calculation, reasoning, and logic.  This sometimes creates a sensation of internal struggle for myself.  I do quite literally have to talk myself out of doing what doesn't make sense (buying that shiny new thing, getting a drink other than water with my sub sandwich) so that I will do what does make sense.  And for a moment I am sad.  But shortly after I am rewarded with a sense of security, or accomplishment, or self gratitude.  All sensations that last significantly longer than the pleasures I have chosen to pass over. 

And here I am getting closer and closer to early retirement.  Enjoying the spoils of minimalism and so forth.  All the while noticing that this feels a little.... unnatural.  It certainly does, however, feel right. 


Just some thoughts I felt like sharing.

[Khan]

To cast away what seems like a basic instinct to indulge in whatever I may be capable of consuming immediately.

Yeah, I'm gonna emphasize that right there. Our consumerist culture is heavily based on what our society chooses to define as important. Take for instance CEO pay.

U.S. CEOs earn from 400 to 500 times the median salary for workers. For CEOs in the U.K., the ratio is 22; in France, it's 15; and in Germany it's 12.

http://work.chron.com/ceo-compensation-vs-world-15509.html

Right there, you can see that in the US because of our attitudes towards individualism, profit, and executive compensation, our CEO's have a completely different pay scale compared to the rest of the world. The same thing can be said about our consumerist culture. We place a heavy emphasis on it, we're born into it, we breath it, it permeates every facet of our lives. It's not a natural phenomenon. There might be some amount of natural inclination towards want-satisfying, but not nearly so much as culture IMO, much like male/female aggressiveness is driven more by culture then it is by male/female dichotomy.
http://www.freakonomics.com/2013/02/24/women-are-not-men-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/

Another thing to point out as far as minimalism, consumerism, and FI goes is that those who can visualize the future, who don't consider their future self a stranger, who can delay gratification have been shown to be better performers in that future. Links between minimalism and delayed gratification haven't been shown, but I'm sure that's because minimalism isn't that huge of a movement, but it's only a tangential offspring of prudent financial choices.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment#Follow-up_studies

[Kriegsspiel]

Everyone has different proclivities. I've been pretty minimal my entire life, and it feels totally natural and comfortable. You sound like you aren't inclined towards minimalism. There's nothing really wrong with that. I don't think the MMMs consider themselves minimalists, and they seem to be doing ok.

However, the examples you use, buying a fast car, buying too much house, aren't exactly cut and dry "super consumer" items. I'm sure a lot of minimalists have a house and a car. The difference is you didn't buy them like a mustachian would; buying for the most utility. A Scion/Fit/Vibe gets you places pretty much as fast as an expensive fast car, that kind of thing. You might not need go full on Less Than 100 Things minimalist, just gotta do things smarter.

[Michelle119]

I honestly think some people are minimalist and some are not by nature. I know that while I love fancy cars, houses, electronics, etc I always knew that I didn't want to work until I was 70 or work so many hours while my kids were growing up that I would miss their childhoods. I'm definitely not a minimalist by definition, but my husband and I have curtailed spending in some areas to save and spend in other areas. We stretched our budget for our house, but we knew we'd grow into it and not need to upgrade further down the road, but we decided to curtail going out for dinners and buying random electronics in trade instead of decreasing monthly savings.  I think its more a matter of trade-offs and not stretching yourself too thin rather than minimalists vs. non-minimalists.

[GuitarStv]

Of course it's unnatural!

In nature, an animal is limited in it's consumption primarily by nature!  You don't see too many fat wolves because it's hard to hunt down prey in the long winter.  There is a fundamental biological urge to over-consume whenever the resources are available to protect yourself from the lean times.  In modern human society we don't really get lean times anymore though, but it doesn't remove the urge to eat/hoard.

[ace1224]

i think it all depends on the person's interpretation of minimal.  like i'm not into cars, or electronics, i hate jewelery, i wear the same shirts over and over, i don't buy a lot of shoes or clothes or jewelery. i don't want a big mondo house because i don't want to clean it, i have like zero hobbies so i don't have any gear for that.
but....i have tons of books, i love eyeliner, and i've never met a restaurant i didn't like, and my dogs are accessorized.

my house looks pretty empty, but sometimes my bank account does too because i "needed" sushi 4 times that month

[MissStache]

I don't know if this happens to anyone else, but when I go into a Costco, there is some crazy primal urge to hoard that comes out of nowhere.   I'm the kind of person who can easily go into a grocery store and leave with the one thing I came in for, but I have to seriously fight the urge to mow down a little kid with my grocery cart to get to that case of 26,000 saltine crackers.  I blame it on the cavewoman inside me who has the survival instinct to fill the cave for winter, though it has obviously been messed up beyond recognition in our modern life (why do we have 9 sheet sets when we only have 2 beds??).

[frugalman]

I don't know if this happens to anyone else, but when I go into a Costco, there is some crazy primal urge to hoard that comes out of nowhere.   I'm the kind of person who can easily go into a grocery store and leave with the one thing I came in for, but I have to seriously fight the urge to mow down a little kid with my grocery cart to get to that case of 26,000 saltine crackers.  I blame it on the cavewoman inside me who has the survival instinct to fill the cave for winter, though it has obviously been messed up beyond recognition in our modern life (why do we have 9 sheet sets when we only have 2 beds??).

I'm married and working, my wife has been retired for 5 years. I pretty much don't shop, so it's easy for me. I don't go to Walmart, Costco, Target etc. for "sport" ever. Let's see, I went to Batteries Plus this week, to buy a riding lawnmower battery. $47.02, in and out, and I didn't lovingly gaze at other products I could buy. Maybe once or twice a year, I'll look at my wardrobe, and go shopping at Kohl's or JC Penneys or Target etc. with a list of what I want - 4 dress shirts, long sleeve, 2 pairs dress pants, 2 shorts etc etc. Pretty much stick to the list and I'm out of there. Dear wife does the weekly shopping for us at Walmart (groceries and supplies). I'm sometimes amazed at the bill (how much does it take for two people) so I look at the receipt, and there's clothes and gifts and stuff. I don't say much unless it is REALLY egregious, but the longer you are in or exposed to that type of store, the more you are going to buy. MMM is a proponent of watching less TV also, because you are just exposed to very powerful advertising that makes you WANT stuff.

[Frankies Girl]

If you want to take it a little deeper, the accumulation of things - material goods and the outward trappings of wealth are all part of the idea that we get some or all of our identity from the things we own. It's been like that down through the ages, building grander and more costly castles and lavish jewelry and clothing and trying to show just how awesome they were based on what they owned, or what they could buy.

The problem is that if you define yourself through what you own, or what you do for a living, is that it is harder to know who that "you" really is if you stripped away all the material trappings. I don't feel the least bit upset about not owning a fast car or a fancy house. They didn't represent me at all other than as a mode of transportation and a place to live. I don't define myself through my stuff. I could care less if someone else has a billion dollar house or if the clothes they wear are dripping with logos and cost the earth, I just kind of feel sad for those people since they're so caught up in the consumerism that what you buy somehow makes you "better." It doesn't. It just masks the person you are inside. And if you're spending gobs of money trying to keep that facade up by buying more and bigger and newer things... that's what keeps you trapped.

I had a coworker that constantly bought a brand new Mustang every other year. She drove it to and from work and for errands. It was awkward to move things in, and she used to complain that it got horrible gas mileage. And yet if you asked her why she kept buying this car, she'd say "Well, I just wouldn't be ME without my Mustang!" What the hell does that mean? She had some idea that the car made her cooler, more awesome, or somehow better? That's screwed up thinking there.

I'm not saying that I live on the side of a hill and have nothing but the clothes on my back - far from it. But over the years I've started appreciating that things are tools - and giving them power over my feelings - whether I'll be devastated if I don't have the latest gadget or someone has something nicer than I do - that's giving away MY power to choose what is important in my life. I have a small, cozy little house in suburbia, a reasonable car to drive, and stuff that makes me happy, but I don't have way more than I need anymore, and I don't give a rat's ass about impressing anyone (except maybe the husband every once in a while). :)

I'd love to actually be a minimalist, and someday that's a possibility. It's taken me some time to break out of my childhood lessons of "save everything" (hoarder/packrat upbringing) but I did get that sorted out, and who knows? I've got time to start culling down the bits and pieces now.

[sfb]

I collected stamps as a kid and I think that largely cured me of any desire to accumulate stuff to just look at.  However, I've always enjoyed hobbies and activities that allowed me to create or work with my hands.  I built models and painted as a kid and as an adult I remodeled houses and worked on my sailboat.  Now I have neither a house nor a boat and I miss working on them.  Hikes, biking, going to movies and concerts are fine, but not enough to satisfy me.  So I'm sure I will be buying a house and/or boat sometime in the future.

[olivia]

Minimalism is unnatural for me!  If I buy one thing and like it I immediately want to buy 10 more.  It's just my first instinct!  I don't usually, and have gotten better about giving in the last year or two, but the impulse is hard to resist.  I think it depends on the person, but most people I know, even the ones who aren't compulsive shoppers, aren't even close to being minimalist.  I know our consumerist culture probably contributes to that, but I bet there's also an evolutionary component in the mix.

[Jamesqf]

A Scion/Fit/Vibe gets you places pretty much as fast as an expensive fast car, that kind of thing.

Even in the world of fast cars, a minimalist design such as a Lotus or the Ariel Atom will likely get you around the track faster than the non-minimalist muscle cars, and for sure faster than an SUV, no matter how much engine is in it :-)

I think part of the problem is that there are really two definitions of minimalist.  The first is deprivation, learning to get along on as little as possible.  The second is about efficiency, deciding what you really get utility and/or enjoyment from, and obtaining those with least effort.

In nature, an animal is limited in it's consumption primarily by nature!  You don't see too many fat wolves because it's hard to hunt down prey in the long winter.

Not true at all.  Most of the time, predators could kill more than they could possibly eat, just as most herbivores could graze until they burst.  But they don't.

[Emilyngh]

Meh, to the whole question as to whether or not something is "natural."     It has always seems like a distraction and poor metric for judging anything.    The majority of what most people do is not "natural."    Open heart surgery, living in houses, eating chocolate, none of it really natural.     And yet, we seem to focus in on a few select topics to evaluate as "natural" or not, implying that that has any significant meaning as to its worth.

So, forget the "natural" question.    Do you enjoy being minimalist?    Is it fulfilling?  The opposite of "consumerism" is not  nec. "minimalism."    Stuff is so readily available in our society than one can live a far from minimalistic life purely off of others' waste and their own craftiness.