Over the past few weeks, I’ve been obsessed with selling or donating old belongings. I’ve sold a 1960’s Czech bass guitar, a laptop, a Playstation 2, a non-Emily Wilson translation of the Iliad, and several guitar effects pedals. I’ve donated around fifty other books since the local bookstore thought nothing I had was worthwhile other than that lone copy of the Iliad. The bass sale brought the number of stringed instruments in our apartment down to eight, so I’m not sure I can count myself a real minimalist yet, but I’m closer than I was before.
The catalyst for most of the selling is baby-proofing our apartment, but there are aesthetic and ascetic reasons tied up in the reduction of things in my life, too. For example, I’m afraid to hang anything on the wall over Remy’s crib, which happens to be where I used to hang my Fenders. Hanging an instrument anywhere else would throw off the aesthetics of our space (just like the overflowing bookshelves were visual pollution), and floor stands are self-defeating in that Remy could pull them off the stand and hurt herself. So, I needed to put some instruments away away, and I don’t mind that. It excites me. Having fewer things means that I can pay greater attention to the things that I’ve consciously chosen to keep.
Giving something up feels like a deliberate choice about how I want to spend my time. For a few months, I was obsessed with getting a “lever-steel” guitar, which is an innovation on lap-steel guitars that can get closer to true pedal-steel sounds. My hope is still that Remy is one day the world’s premier pedal steel guitarist, but my pursuit of that sound for myself today won’t help her get any closer to that. Deciding not to buy a lever-steel means that I can focus on playing the regular ole’ guitar or bass, both of which still offer me a lifetime of learning.
As far as deliberate choices go, I made a similar decision not to pursue my MBA after undergrad. I knew friends who spent the last summer of their non-professional-working lives studying for the GMAT and I decided I didn’t want to deal with that stress. I obviously changed my mind and scrambled together a test plan and applications during the pandemic, but my four years of commitment to not getting an MBA were bliss. I did not feel the need to do things because they were good for my applications, nor did I stress about studying or campus tours. The fact that I reversed my decision is irrelevant to me, because the point was the mental space. It’s not quite real denial or asceticism, but it’s something.
That kind of micro-asceticism was why I sold my PS2 and extra laptop. They weren’t real intruders on our space and had no impact on baby-proofing, but getting rid of them meant that I no longer let them make me feel guilty for not using them. Playing a video-game is so low on my list of potentially fun things to do that I basically never do it, but the option was there. It is freeing now that the PS2 is nowhere on the list. The same is true for the laptop. I was trying to use it as a server for OpenClawd for a few weeks, but I’ll just pause and let more commercially viable options come my way. What do I need an AI agent for, anyways? The tech world makes you feel behind if you don’t have one, but god that’s stupid. I’ve spent so much time looking for problems to solve with AI and haven’t found a real personal use case yet. I don’t do much that I don’t enjoy at least a little bit, so I have nothing to hand-off to some less capable AI personality.
In my pursuit of less, I went through my finances and looked for ways to cut unnecessary costs and subscriptions. Audible hasn’t been reimbursed for Amex cardholders since October 2023, but I had been adding credits to my account every month regardless. As a result of that discovery, I’ve got a whole new list of audio books to get through (talk about stress), but I won’t be charged $14.99 next month.
A few weeks ago, I joked with Elizabeth about going to a live talk from the hosts of The Minimalists podcast here in New York. She offered to help me sell things without charging me $48 for two hours of my time, which I may take her up on. Becoming a hardcore minimalist dude-bro who sits around in empty rooms talking about Marcus Aurelius is definitely not my goal, but I don’t think I’m done reducing quite yet. I’m still debating selling my Telecaster and Jazz Bass, but I might still be too sentimental. I’d like to say that less is more, but I’m still fighting the part of me that agrees with Yngwie Malmsteen.
This is probably just part of all my new-father-soul-searching, but I’ve been reflecting on how making any choice naturally eliminates entire decision tree branches of other subsequent choices. When you make a decision that is irreversible (or at least challenging to reverse), you cut yourself off from needing to make the subsequent chain of decisions that the alternative choice would have later presented. The rest of your life cascades from every single decision you make. I tend towards over-commitment, so its a relief to commit to not doing something or having something.
It’s harder (but not impossible) to distract yourself with things you don’t have. Sure, you can desire, but you don’t have to put effort towards things you don’t have or don’t do. The easiest way to reduce the load you carry is to not accumulate in the first place, and that applies to time commitments or relationships or even audiobooks just as much as it does to physical things. One of the few thoughts that has successfully reached my subconscious through my half-asleep listening to Joseph Goldstein’s dharma talks is how often we are looking for things to want. We browse the internet (for me, reverb.com or craigslist) or wander shopping malls looking for things to want. We can reduce our desiring by recognizing how much effort goes into looking for something to desire.
For me, having less forces me to want a little less, because you ideally do want to use the things you have. I wouldn’t make sense to want to play the Czech bass or PS2 that I no longer have. So, unless I hit the lottery and the payout is both millions of dollars and more hours in the day, I’m not really wanting for much. I still play the Powerball because what I want more than anything is the freedom to use my time however I like. Tens of millions of dollars would do the trick. But even then, I like to think that I’d leave space open and try to live simply. Maybe I’m full of it but hopefully not.