http://dandibiyo.blogspot.com/2011/08/to-be-or-not-to-be-minimalist.html

To be or not to be a minimalist

So it hasn't taken the world by storm yet. Maybe it never will.
There is, however, an accelerating movement, that of minimalist people and of minimalist ideas. This movement might never be adopted by the majority. That is mainly because of the nature of the idea of minimalism itself.

This movement is quite personal for me. My involvement in this movement was and is not that of a leader but as a reader. My greatest influence has been Leo Babauta. Lately, I have been branching out to other bloggers (liveyourlegend.net, evbogue.com and minimalists.com seem promising).
"To be or not to be a minimalist" was never a question that I posed to myself. It has been "to be" for a while now.

Today is my foray into blogging about my minimalist journey and not my dive into minimalism itself. My journey is my path and my goal is my journey.

I disdain categories and branding myself as a minimalist had seemed unimportant. However, today, I decided to be in a category. Categories are bad only when taken from a wrong perspective. The right perspective is that, they all are approximations.

My minimalism will differ from Leo's minimalism and so on. The only thing that encompasses both minimalisms is the principle of minimalism and the journey towards that idea.

For me, minimalism is about stripping of all extraneous, unnecessary and materialistic possessions, ideas and relationships. This paring down is necessary.
Everett Bogue has described quite beautifully in these words (about the need for minimalism):"For years you couldn’t figure out what the problem was, instead you had this raw aching feeling that something/somewhere was terribly wrong." and in another posting Ev Bogue answers in one of countless eloquent posts to a question “Why would you ever…?”:

Leave a city that you love so much.
Delete a best selling e-book that still sells copies every day.
Quit a job with a fancy title.
Stop eating something that tastes good.
Donate a perfectly good jacket because you I have two.

Why? Because it isn’t a challenge anymore. I’m covering the same ground again and again. I’m taking 25% of my energy and investing it in time that has already eclipsed. That leaves me with only 75% for the new stuff. As more things build up in the past, more energy gets dedicated to maintenance. Pretty soon I’m maintaining with 100%, which equals stagnation.

I don’t want to maintain connections, I want to grow the existing, or create new ones. This applies to everything in life.

I untether to evolve.

I love the part about maintenance and how it bogs us down. It's very true. From a person, to a club to a corporation and to a country, a big behemoth means a need for constant maintenance. Pretty much, after a while, all innovation that could be achieved is not only lost but retardation might even occur. To go forward, it is not optional to pare down. It is necessary.

Think of a boat you have used to cross a river. Would you carry that boat into the promised land while the tigers in the dense jungle are bent on tearing you apart?

It's a must to be dedicated in non-maintenance which means that you will grow and evolve.

Here's my two cents to be a minimalist.

By laya