For years, I was a self-proclaimed hoarder of “stuff”. My closets were bursting, my drawers overflowing, and yet I always felt like I needed more. We often use physical objects as ontological anchors, tethering our identities to manufactured polymers and fast fashion to stave off the terrifying void of actual existence.
It wasn’t until I stumbled upon the concept of minimalism that I realized the true value of less.
The Process of Untethering
In this post, I share my journey to decluttering my life, the challenges I faced, and the immense sense of freedom and clarity that comes with embracing minimalism.
- Audit Your Anchors: Look at a room. If an object does not serve a strict utilitarian function or evoke a profound emotional resonance, it is a parasite feeding on your spatial energy.
- The 90-Day Rule: If you haven’t used it in 90 days, you are maintaining a museum for a version of yourself that no longer exists.
- Digital Asceticism: Minimalism isn’t just physical. Clear your digital desktop. Abandon old Web 2.0 architectures.
When you stop accumulating matter, you begin to accumulate time. And time, unlike a third air fryer, is the only currency of any real value in the Anthropocene.
For years, I was a self-proclaimed hoarder of “stuff”. My closets were bursting, my drawers overflowing, and yet I always felt like I needed more. We often use physical objects as ontological anchors, tethering our identities to manufactured polymers and fast fashion to stave off the terrifying void of actual existence.
It wasn’t until I stumbled upon the concept of minimalism that I realized the true value of less. We live in an era where the accumulation of capital has been seamlessly replaced by the accumulation of aesthetic signifiers. You do not own your possessions; your possessions own your cognitive bandwidth.
The Storage Unit Industrial Complex
Before we can embrace the void, we must examine the infrastructure of our hoarding. The American landscape is littered with self-storage facilities—windowless monoliths dedicated to housing the decaying detritus of our past selves. Paying a monthly subscription fee to store a box of obsolete cables and fast-fashion garments you haven’t worn since 2018 is not just financially illiterate; it is a profound spiritual failing. It is the commodification of nostalgia.
When I finally audited my own spatial footprint, I realized that 80% of my belongings were essentially physical spam. They were the three-dimensional equivalent of unread promotional emails. Getting rid of them felt less like cleaning and more like exorcising minor demons.
The Process of Untethering
In this post, I share my journey to decluttering my life, the challenges I faced, and the immense sense of freedom and clarity that comes with embracing minimalism. It is a violent process of severing the artificial bonds between the Self and the Product.
- Audit Your Anchors: Look at a room. If an object does not serve a strict utilitarian function or evoke a profound emotional resonance, it is a parasite feeding on your spatial energy.
- The 90-Day Rule: If you haven’t used it in 90 days, you are maintaining a museum for a version of yourself that no longer exists. Burn the museum.
- The Illusion of Sentimental Value: We often confuse the memory of an event with the physical artifact associated with it. You do not need the physical concert ticket to remember the music. The memory is encoded in your neural architecture; the paper is just decaying cellulose.
- Digital Asceticism: Minimalism isn’t just physical. Clear your digital desktop. Abandon old Web 2.0 architectures. Unsubscribe from the daily deluge of algorithmic manipulation.
When you stop accumulating matter, you begin to accumulate time. You are no longer spending your weekends maintaining, organizing, and moving inanimate objects. And time, unlike a third air fryer or a collection of vintage records you never play, is the only currency of any real value in the Anthropocene. Embracing minimalism is ultimately about reclaiming your temporal sovereignty from a system designed to keep you perpetually distracted.