Path to Harmony: Reduce the Noise

In early February, I collected everything superfluous (and not even superfluous, but without which you can live), put it into packages and distributed it. But for the most part, she threw it away.

What was left was neatly placed in the inner drawers, and the space of the house was freed up. I liked the emptiness and purity, and the man was interested in how our current existence now differs from asceticism. The conclusion was simple.

Asceticism is the limitation of oneself in order to educate the spirit and concentrate on the inner, while minimalism is the grace of saving energy that can be spent on other things.

The very power at rest that we ourselves can be – and that the surrounding space allows us to accumulate when there is no extra visual noise in it.

Many intuitively fear emptiness and constantly want something new. But it seems that no one has repealed the law of conservation of energy, because where does the new come from when the old is so ugly cluttered up?

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Most of the minimalism posts you’ll find will tell you to “give up and throw it out”, show you white interiors that not everyone can live in, and give the impression that minimalism is an indispensable “thirty-one-day challenge” when the first day you have to throw away one thing (and tell everyone about it on instagram), the second – two, and so on.

This is a white bed, walls and floor, among which, at best, a black photo frame or a slender flower by the bed stands out.

It seems that everything that is written about minimalism as a lifestyle is not some kind of affirmative philosophy. It’s a philosophy of denial: “give up,” “reduce,” “stop.”

The philosophy of denial is bad because it implies the presence in your universe of this very object of denial.

That is, minimalism with the words “refuse” is still an opposition to consumerism, which means that consumerism is the starting point.

I don’t want to “count” life from consumerism or redundancy. I want to reckon it from the simplicity that embodies this very power at rest.

The absence of visual noise does not just save energy – it helps to focus on the main thing and open up more fully.

The principle of conservation of energy still works.

It was simple for me: frequent moving from place to place taught me to take only what I need (laziness is the great engine of personal progress here), but many people live in one favorite place all their lives and gradually collect memorabilia that accumulate dust. What to do in this case?

You will still have to turn to denial and rejection: to clear the space. You just don’t have to stop at throwing everything away and being a minimalist.

Although you have to start with this.

• Divide and Conquer •

Get out your Ikea boxes with lids (or any other boxes) and put everything memorable but not functional in there. Mark the date on them, remove them on the mezzanine.

In your space at home, leave only what you use and cannot live without.

What to do with boxes on the mezzanine? If you never open a single box in six months, arrange a garage sale, give it to an orphanage, a church, or take it somewhere else.

• Disassemble and distribute •

The closet is the weak point of humanity, especially women. Winter should be removed away, preferably on a special shelf.

Everything that lies and waits when I lose weight will come in handy, as well as good fabric, you need to pack and give it to someone. If your girlfriend does not pick up the package within a couple of days, take it to those in need.

• Master the void •

You have a lot of space. The first impulse that usually occurs in such a situation is to fill the urgently formed void.

Fill, but fill alive. You can put a bowl on the table where aroma littles, aroma ropes will smoke, incense will melt on the coal or smoldering smoldering sage.

You can put a vase on the nightstand by the bed, where fresh flowers will appear once a week.

All these are temporary, living things that come and go, but each of which carries some meaning, benefit, has some purpose in your life, other than collecting dust.

Or maybe you will like the resulting free space so empty that you leave it like that. And new ideas will take the place of old things.

You decide.