Minimalism versus Lessism | digitizd »

This is an interesting take on minimalism, which for some reason I find hard to agree with. It sounds like now that minimalism is getting popular, people want to be able to say they are minimalist, without having to change any of your habits. I have nothing against someone having tons of dock icons or multitasking on 20 different tasks at the same time, as long as it works for them. But if that’s minimalism, I’ll choose lessism over it any day.

mnmal:

There’s this funny trend happening on the Web the last few months. It started with people like Leo Babauta of Zen Habits and Patrick Rhone of Minimal Mac, both of whom have sites I read daily and love. Their basic hypothesis is this: we have too much unnecessary stuff, and it affects our lives negatively. So they preach “minimalism,” the systematic getting rid of the extraneous.

That idea, valiant as it is, has warped. As the trend of minimalism has caught on, the definition has changed, and the mantra has gone from being about getting rid of the unnecessary, to looking around your room and saying “what can I get rid of to show everyone how little I have?” Minimalism has given way to lessism.

He does make a valid point here. But what I really like on this post is the following (bold by me):

Minimalism is not, and cannot, be a competition; it is totally and utterly different for every single person. Take me: I’ve got 21 items in the Dock on my computer, nine of which are currently open. I’m listening to music, IMing with my girlfriend, texting my friend, and writing this article at the same time. That works for me. Something completely different might work for you, and that’s fine too, but I would argue that what I’m doing right now is as minimalist as sitting in the 4’ x 4’ box that you’ve created, with chalk and a wall (way more minimalist than paper and pen – I mean, the wall’s already there, why not use it?).

Minimalism is about finding exactly what you need, and nothing more. The minimal life has everything you need, optimized to make you the most productive, most efficient, and least stressed as possible. It has nothing extraneous, nothing useless. Minimalism is about identifying and keeping everything you need, and shutting everything else out. It’s not about getting less, wanting less, or needing less – unless that’s what you need. It might, in fact, require you to get more, if you need something that’ll work better for you than what you have now.

And I completely agree.