I think minimalism for its own sake is pointless. It's not about how much you can bear to do without, as others have said.
This hits the nail on the head for me. Minimalism should be a means to an end, not the end in and of itself.
About 4 years ago I discovered this site -
http://mnmlist.com/archive/ from Leo Babauta and was inspired by the posts at the bottom of the page from September 2009. After that I found the newer posts a bit repetitive, but I understood what Leo was saying. I was inspired and went on a massive de-cluttering spree in every area of my life.
Before the spree (which lasted about 2 weeks) I was basically a minimalist with a load of stuff.
That sounds contradictory. To clarify, I wasn't acquiring more and more stuff all the time by spending my earnings on pointless crap, but at the same time I definitely wasn't getting rid of old stuff that I had had lying around for 10 years or more and no longer needed.
I loved the feeling of not having loads of crap lying around. I found it easier to be tidy and organised simply because when you don't have very much, there is nothing to organise. I read some article that said when you have a massive wardrobe full of clothes you need to sort them by colour or season or material etc. When you only have 6 T-shirts, it doesn't really make any difference how you hang them or stack them because they don't take up that much space.
My mental state certainly improved as well. At the time I was about to move in with my fiancée and it made moving almost pleasurable because there was so little to think about. I also didn't want to burden her very small house with tons of stuff. I ended up making almost no impact at all and she kept saying "Where's your stuff? It doesn't even feel like you're here." That was really satisfying.
I read some more articles on other blogs about people trying to own no more than 100 items in total and whilst I thought it was pretty cool it did strike me as a bit weird and pointless. It seemed to turn into some sort of competition and there was some terribly snobbery in the online minimalist community, mocking anyone that had an entire pair of shoes (not quite but you get the point).
Loads of the blogs that I read seemed to advocate minimalism for mental clarity and for anti-consumerism/pro-environmental purposes, both of which I strongly approve, but not to the point where you're re-using dental floss or living in a tent made of your own childhood clothes.
MMM was the first blog that I read that had a strong minimalist thread running through all the posts, but had a powerful and highly motivating FINANCIAL purpose to it.
I read what I already understood - Owning/buying/hoarding less stuff meant that you could live in a smaller house because you didn't need loads of space to keep loads of stuff. That would cost you less money.
The eye opener for me was MMM then linked the costing less money to saving ---> investing ---> and then retiring early.
It was so simple and so obvious but I had never linked these things together before simply because I didn't know anything about how investing could make money grow on its own. I also thought that retirement was something that you did when you were at least 60. That's what my parents and grandparents did, why should it be any different for me?
This why when I introduce people to MMM and the FIRE concept and call it "Minimalism with balls". There's actually an endgame. There's a purpose to it, and you don't fall prey to what kendallf beautifully sums in the most minimal manner:
Yes. I think if you're counting your possessions, and obsessing over how to reduce them to some arbitrary, lower number, they still own you as they did when you had them in excess.