Eudaemonia Machine
I took on a long delayed challenge and wrote a novella during the quiet and solitude that the early days of the pandemic. By my estimation it’s nothing worth reading and unless I put serious effort into revisions, it won’t be shared more broadly. In the year that followed I also wrote a screen play inspired by a dream that consumed me one night. These creative outpourings were for me and me only. Long solitary swims out into a sea of imagination and wonder. The very doing was enough. I had reached a state of Eudaemonia (or Eudaimonia). The common link between these swells of productivity was space.
The Freedom of Constraints
Some constraints are the result of our respective socio-economic situations. Others come from the compounding of unfortunate circumstances or bad decisions. And yet others come from self selection. The last is my favorite. The conscious creation of boundaries to set constraints in a given situation. I call it addition through subtraction.
Revisiting Minimalism
I find I have to constantly explain the idea of Minimalism to everyone I discuss it with because their first idea is some Monk like existence, barren of joy or material belongings, wasting away alone in some empty white walled room. That’s the double entendre in the naming this philosophy, Minimalism. In reality, Minimalism should be equated with Essentialism. An essentialist philosophy that is reinforced by mindfulness. The two fuel the thoughtful consideration of everything we bring into our lives and how we allot our time and attention.
Love Every City
Not Every City is Equal, your approach to how you experience them, can define the joy you get from travel.
Dry and Veggie January Reflections
We decided to participate in Dry January and added on a Vegetarian (not Vegan) only diet for the start of the year. Another idea we discussed was also cutting out coffee, but two changes were more than enough. We did, however, try to cut the caffeine down to one cup a day and no sooner than 1.5 hours after waking up. But like I said earlier, crash changes are not sustainable or successful. So we planned some approaches around how to stick to and get the most out of these experiments.
The Stoic Benefits of Minimalism
It coincides that Stoicism is a great practice for developing such skills and Minimalism is a jump start towards being a Stoic. Minimalism removes distractions and focuses us on what matters. Especially, in how we manage our emotions towards people and things. Emotions on their own can be neither useful or useless, but they can be informative. Stoicism and Minimalism as a practice can help us move past the immediate reactions from a feeling and look at the deeper lesson within them. They act like car brakes, stopping us before we let our highs get too high or are lows too low.
Intentionally Buying a Bigger Home
An unfocused, noisy, and cluttered home can be physical representations of what is going on in your head. Even if functionally productive, under the hood, the mind may be in complete chaos and the immediate surroundings often reflect that.Over the years, I’ve worked on clearing and focusing my mind. My interests and passions have narrowed but those that remain are stronger. Minimalism has been key in that process and helped define a vision for how I would like the home I live in to breathe and feel. Sparsely decorated rooms and surfaces have become canvasses where my ideas can grow and evolve within them.
Becoming Minimalist
Minimalism represents time and balance for me. The time to do and experience all the things I want. Along with finding the discipline to not let what other people define as import dominate my time. For me, that means cutting out the "noise" of life more than getting rid of things. It requires being ok with earning less, having less, but definitely experiencing more.
Discussing Minimalism with Kristen Hester
I got a chance to interview with Squat Wisely and discuss the topics of #Minimalism and how it relates to my blog post on Commuting in Atlanta without a car. Check it out if you're interested. Starts around the 6:10 mark.