Minimalism Sucks: I Love My Stuff & So Should You

Writing in my study, my peripheral vision is awash with stuff. Row upon row of books is the backdrop to my working day, and turning my head, the view doesn’t change. A third wooden bookcase stands there, taller than the two in front and full of something I treasure more than my books. I’m not a hoarder, not even a collector—I just have a healthy relationship with the things I own—unlike most minimalists.

Minimalism comes from the word minimal (minimus in Latin) – as few as possible. So anyone calling themselves a minimalist has to be limiting the possessions they own, not only decluttering and getting rid of junk – everyone can agree that there’s no benefit in keeping clutter around – but actively trying to live with as few things as possible. The question you should ask is, “Why?” We buy stuff to make our lives better, right?

The Truth: Minimalists Aren’t Really

Scouring the web and looking for examples of people who really live the minimalist lifestyle, I found that most of them don’t. The Minimalists, a trio of bloggers from the U.S., redefine the term in order to make it fit their preferred lifestyles. Here’s how they describe it: “Minimalism is a tool to rid yourself of life’s excess in favor of focusing on what’s important—so you can find happiness, fulfillment, and freedom.” It sounds to me like “get rid of the stuff you don’t need and keep the stuff you like.”

Is that all minimalism is? It confirms what we all know—we all love our stuff.

A person with five wardrobes full of clothes and a house full of stuff can’t be classed as a minimalist – right? What about if they really care about all that stuff? Here’s where the idea breaks down.

Minimalists say, “Minimalism isn’t about owning nothing, it’s about being more meaningful about the things you do own.” I.e., you only own things you really care about. At first glance, this seems reasonable, and it is, but it isn’t minimalism – which isn’t reasonable.

Stuff Is Evil

“You can’t take it with you.”

This was my wife’s attempt to convince me that I didn’t need to complete my collection of WPF POGs. They aren’t even expensive, and they barely take up any space. But we’ve been conditioned to think that things that are unnecessary are somehow bad. I disagree. I get a warm fuzzy feeling from my nerd hobbies, every time I look through the albums of POGs I’ve had since childhood or the Xena: Warrior Princess cards I’ve spent a lifetime collecting. I don’t need them; they’re not useful or valuable; I just enjoy them.

But no one would ever say, “There’s no point eating today, you can’t take it with you,” or, “Don’t do your homework, you can’t take it with you.” Just because something is temporary, finite, and serves no functional purpose doesn’t mean that possessing it has no value, even for a short time.

Stuff isn’t evil. It’s just stuff.

Your Possessions Remind You Who You Are

There’s a wooden tray on my coffee table. I bought it with my wife a few months ago after moving into this house, and there is a set of coasters on it that we bought from a market in Ubud, Bali, on our honeymoon over a decade ago. I’ve never thought that sitting on my coffee table is a physical representation of our marriage, but there it is. Sometimes, I set my coffee mug on one of the coasters and am reminded of the banana pancakes I ate each morning in the guest house we stayed in or how the market sellers would wipe their whole shop down with the bills from the first sale of the day for good luck.

It’s not just the coffee table, either. There are mementos all over the house, reminding us of different experiences and parts of our lives. What exactly do we gain by giving this stuff up?

I’ve lived a few different lives. I was a martial arts teacher, an IT specialist, I lived in the Chinese mountains and the Indian Himalayas, where I spoke only Tibetan for a time. It would be easy to forget who the real me is. Is it Gao Ge (my Chinese name)? Is it a computer nerd? Or a fighter?

When life gets busy, and I get sucked into some new project, it would be easy to stop practicing tai chi, listening to the music I love, or smoking cigars, but these things surround me every day, reminding me of what’s essential in my life, those things that have always been there.

Think back and remember something you treasured as a child. Now go to eBay and buy one!

A Souvenir Is Better Than a Minimalist Story.

My Grandfather traveled the world working for the British Government. When he’d come back, he’d always have something for us—my sisters and me. I don’t know what he used to give them, but for me, it was always coins and bank notes from his travels.

He’d sit us down and tell us stories about the places he’d been and would sometimes pull out some photos. I remember him telling me how the plane would descend through skyscrapers when landing in Hong Kong, but I don’t remember any other stories. And since he’s been gone almost two decades now, one of the only things I have left from him is a box full of foreign currency.

It got me thinking about what I’d do with my grandkids when I become a grandparent: bore them with stories (that they’ll only forget) or give them something they can hold in their hands and keep even after I’m gone.

Your Phone Isn’t Great at Anything

Minimalists lean heavily on technology to clear out their physical spaces. They might digitalize paperwork (if it isn’t digital already), put it not a personal knowledge management app, and use a keyboard with their smartphone instead of buying a PC or laptop. Instead of buying a camera – yep, they rely on their smartphone and instead of a hi-fi system – smartphone, instead of photo albums, you’ve guessed it, their smartphone.

I can’t tell you if this counts as “minimalism” because instead of minimalizing the parts of their life or the things they own, here they are just keeping everything but shoving all into that pocket-sized device the world is now completely dependent on. But whether or not it is minimalism is beside the point. Your smartphone sucks.

• I own a Nikon D750. It’s an old camera that was released in 2014, but it takes better photos than any smartphone.
• The screen on my desktop is a 2 K 180hz display, and while you might have a 4 K display on your smartphone, my PC monitor is 27 inches, not 6! Size matters for any kind of work, be it writing emails, web browsing, or anything else.
• No one wants to look at the photos on your phone (not for more than a moment or two), but people will spend 15 minutes looking at all the pictures on my photo wall in the living room.

You probably didn’t know that dedicated digital music players (what used to be called MP3 players) still exist, and people are buying them for hundreds of dollars despite them being no smaller than their smartphones. Why? For people who know music, the sound that comes out of a smartphone is so bad that it’s worth carrying around a second device to listen to music on the go.

I could go on, but you get the point. Using a smartphone to achieve minimalist status only reduces the quality of your day-to-day life.

CDs are still King

My bookcase of CDs is probably a minimalist nightmare.

This year (2024), The CD is 45 years old.

Let that sink in for a moment.

If you were born in this millennium, that might sound about right, but CDs were the future to my generation. They were a step forward after listening to awful cassette tapes in the car and seemed space-aged next to the archaic vinyl record.

Despite being 45 years old and almost obsolete, the humble CD is still technically better than whatever you’re listening to your music with. Streaming services like Apple Music or Spotify offer highly compressed music. It might sound good to you, but that’s probably because you never tried doing a side-by-side listening comparison with the CD version.

Spotify’s streaming bitrate is approximately 160kbit/s on High and 320kbit/s on Very High. Compare this with 1,411kbit/s for CD. Enough said.

That’s if you can even find the artist you want to listen to. Try listening to Jimi Hendrix on your streaming service, and you’ll quickly find out that you can’t—it’s not on there. It only takes a contract dispute for your favorite artist to be removed from the streaming service you prefer. But no one is coming to take my CDs away.

Fill Your Boots!

So, if you want to fill up your wardrobes with clothes you rarely wear, have at it! You’ll look better than the minimalist types you meet. And if you want to keep a collection of wine or cigars in your basement, do it! I know I’d rather be at one of your parties than theirs. And if you have action figures, a vinyl collection, first-edition comic books, or a tabletop of glinting gemstones, don’t hide them away! Be merciful and leave them out for visitors to ask about – because there’s nothing to say at a minimalist apartment, but perhaps that’s the point.