This post is inspired by a comment by Brett @  www.step1minimalist.com to “Moving beyond the low-hanging fruit of the simplicity movement” by Sam Spurlin

“The stage of stuff”

When one first gets into the whole simplicity/minimalism thing there’s a big focus on “stuff”. Getting rid of stuff, organizing stuff, getting stuff done, doing without stuff and limiting one self to very little stuff, like 50 of 100 items.

And that’s great but it’s only half of what this is about. You can unclutter and throw away all you wan’t, but it is not the end goal, its only the first step. It really is liberating to get rid of things that is not used anymore and try to par down to what we see a our personal necessities.

However, as I see it, the ‘journey’ doesn’t end here. Having gotten rid of all that physical stuff, has now made our daily lives a lot easier. You pretty much know where everything is, like which of your shirts are clean at the moment and whats available in the fridge and so on. Maybe you´ve even gotten a good simple ‘to-do’ list going.

“The stage of brain-clutter”

This is where I see the second stage of minimalism kick in. The fact that you´ve made your  physical life easier, has reduced your stress-level and there is more you “don’t really need to think about”, like cleaning and organizing (Maybe you’ve even given up on a few dead-end projects or hobbies). This leaves you with more time on your hands. Time to think. Time to evaluate what’s important for you. Personally, I feel forced to think about and deal with my feelings about family, friends and relationships, who I wan’t to be, where I’m going in life. I say forced in the most positive meaning of the word, because I see this as one of the keys elements of simplicity. By removing all non-essentials from your life, you have to put some thought into what’s actually important. And by by removing obvious physical clutter from your life, you get time to do just that.

Ok, so I haven´t posted for over a month. It´s been hectic, since I’ve had to write two papers and prepare for an upcoming exam. Anyhow, I would like to talk a bit about my experiences with growing edible ”green stuff” when living in a small apartment. I had no previous experience with gardening except for growing cress in a milk-carton, so if I can do it everyone can – I must confess that my mom is somewhat of a green-finger wizard, so maybe I picked up a tip or two without knowing it

I became interested in this, after giving ”sprouting” a try, thinking I could make my own sprouts. It didn’t turn out very well, and I ended up just growing the before-mentioned regular  cress. But that got me hooked, so I bought a few bags of seeds, and now I have enough green leaf salad for every day of the week and a fair amount of spinach(I´m quite proud of that). Being a big falafel fan i tried putting some regular dried chickpeas from the store into the soil and they actually seem to be thriving, even though I don´t pay much attention to them. I look forward to see if I end up with actual usable chickpeas from this experiment. Home made falafel with homegrown garlic and parsley would be super awesome.

The really cool thing about this is that it’s fairly cheap. Besides the seeds I have only bought two bags of soil, which ran about 5 bucks for the pair. The most expensive thing i Bought was a ”wax” tablecloth used to save the IKEA work-desk i used as a potting-table from total ruin. But hopefully it will come to use again next year. I’ve also learned that plants will grow in pretty much anything, so no need to go out and buy a lot of terra-cotta. I
have arugula growing in a styrofoam box I found in the trash. Apparently, people who are into flowers repot them a lot, so I have found like 20 plastic containers in the trash that work great.

Why am I doing this again?- You ask(talking about letting go of hobbies, and now just you’re taking up a new one?) Well, its a low cost, low maintenance hobby, which will get me better food.And hey, it’s like 25 feet from the ”garden” to the kitchen, so you can’t eat much more local than that And it’s a joy to come home each day and see how everything has grown a little. It’s like a small step towards becoming self-sufficient. That is, however, not really a goal of mine, but its a good feeling, ”just doing a little”, for whatever reason.

Yesterday I talked about letting go of a hobby. But a person still needs a hobby, right?
I think many of us often gets hobbies and interests mixed up a bit. I see a hobby as something you choose to do often and an interest as a subject you like to read up on once in a while. I think that  interests is where it starts and then maybe it evolves into a hobby if you’re really into it.
This is were many of us fail, myself included sometimes. We see something on TV(there’s a real easy solution to that one, i know), on websites or see that our friends are doing it and this makes us skip a very important step in ‘choosing something thats right for me’. We need to stop and think, is this really a thing I can see my self doing or is it just the excitement  of new ‘stuff’? Instead we tend to go straight to Google or Amazon to check out prices, to see how much we need to shell out to have this new great hobby. This is not the way to go!
This is not at hobby but an obsession with the tools used in it. Even if you can afford this, I think it´s wrong to do so. It will take too much of your time, trying stuff out, giving up, deciding it’s not for you, trying to sell it and cover your loss and so on.
The new thing for me the past 6 months or so has been an increased interest i fixed-gear bikes and digital photography. Yet I have still refrained from buying either a fixie or an SLR camera, even though I’ve been checking out both online. I already own both a bike and a camera. Even though its a beaten second-hand bike and a used Canon point-and-shoot model, they still  perform very well. Sure, they don´t offer the sleek simple style of a fixie or all the zooming macro glory of a good SLR, but they work. Thats why I’ve decided to not buy either, this this year. I’ll keep using the gear i have till I find out if i´m really that into riding a bike and till I’ve taken the best picture my little camera can produce. I’ll know when that happens.

Btw, the picture was taken with my 4 Megapixels Canon that i got for 25 bucks

I’ve been playing guitar on and off since I was 16, when I received my first acoustic for Christmas. Of course, as a teenager growing up, I wanted the all-time biggest symbol of the rebellious youth…AN ELECTRIC GUITAR! And also all the gnarly gritty distortion I could bring along, so soon after that I bought a Les Paul copy which let me play my favorite punk rock tunes and I started coming up with riffs. I have even played in a few bands through the years. Mostly punk bands, but also with a more heavy/stoner rock inspired sound later on. Anyway,  I guess I’ve had around 10 different guitars that I have bought second-hand and sold again at online auctions or Danish Craigslist equivalents. My last and longest lasting guitar is my mexican made Fender Toronado I bought used in ’06. I love the beautiful cream-white color and the tortoise pick-guard.

But!

Except for maybe 5 hours of on and off use, it has been in its case under our bed for the past 2 years. It’s time to let it go. Every time I think of the “poor” guitar under my bed I get somewhat sad because without it getting used it’s just an expensive piece of wood, that is both taking up space and keeping whatever I can sell it for out of my bank account. And I’m not gonna keep it just for the memorys of teenage-rock dreams. A picture of it will do just fine!

I think it’s important to be honest and let go of a hobby when the interest is gone and we’ve found new things to pursue. Let’s face it, don’t keep that old guitar or box of art supplies around, thinking that you’ll write a song or paint a picture someday. You wont!  Let it go! Now!
Actually, you’ve already detached yourself from the act of the hobby, since your not doing it anymore. Mentally you’re not a guitarist or painter etc. anymore. So why not get rid of the gear?
Theres always gonna be an old guitar up for grabs or a sale at the arts and craft store if you wan’t to take it up again.