Starting Over

Why a minimalist is driven to start over when things are perfect; the feeling of tension and anxiety, and its cause; leaving people because they are "messy."

Transcript

Starting Over

Perfectionism and minimalism come together in the desire and the need to always be starting over. I had a bad first term in my first year of university. It wasn’t bad grades or anything like that, but I had not achieved the levels of perfection that I wanted and needed to. I can’t remember the details any more, but it likely had to do with just not feeling that I had gotten the program right, followed the right path, done everything just so, so that I could have a sense of perfect accomplishment. I needed to resolve this, at least in my own mind, before I could move on, and I remember that the facile method I used was to say to myself, “What first term?” It was a dumb and simpleminded way to convince myself that this second term was really the beginning, but I always knew of course that this was not the case.

A similar striving for perfection happened during one of my summers in high school. I had set a reading plan in place, and a general schedule: get up at a certain time, read a certain book. Typically I had not factored in any tolerances or any adjustments to even the minor facts of reality. For example, if I’d decided that I would be reading by 8:30, then I would start that reading even if that was one morning when my mother was running a little late in getting to work. I remember also that I started over and over again: the night before I would re-wash my pants so that the next morning could start perfectly. And I would start my reading from the beginning, too. It was a striving to get it all right, to what standard I don’t know, but the main side effect, the ruination really, was that progress was lost and the sense of accomplishment was pretty much completely destroyed by the starting over and the judgment that there was something wrong with those normal days that I lived, something so wrong that I had to write them off and begin anew. I never did finish that book.

Such an attitude also precludes the possibility of reacting to the way life goes rather than planning it all out beforehand. There is a strong element of control: life is so messy and chaotic that the only way to live it successfully is to plan it out first. It doesn’t encourage much flexibility or reaction skills.

So, how does any of this relate to minimalism? The more you start over and over, the less you get done, the less you experience, the less you have in your life in general. And the more you think that life is something that you have to have total control over, that you have to master beforehand, that you can’t just experience and see how it goes, the more you are going to tend to retreat into your own private, stripped-down world, the more you are going to live in fear, the more you are going to try to control others right out of your life, and so end up with just your own minimalist self, alone, controlling and controlled, fearful, blissfully and sadly having nothing and nobody.

Tension

I’ve suffered for over 20 years from tension and anxiety: I have butterflies in my stomach on a constant, continuous, non-stop basis. I’ve never been quite sure of the reason for it, but I think that one contributing possibility is that I am a minimalist who does tend to opt out, but I know that I shouldn’t do that, and so that tension is my body’s way of reminding me that I should dive in rather than remain dry at the side of the pool. It’s the anxiety of inaction, of non-commitment. Perhaps another factor in this tension is that for most of my life I’ve also been fat to one degree or another (I currently weigh about 100 pounds more than I did 20 years ago). That, of course, is ironic in a minimalist: he wants to get rid of everything, but he can’t get rid of excess weight, the one thing that arguably he has the most control over. It’s like being an AA counsellor with a drinking problem. Or a police officer who commits crimes. So I have had a double reason to be tense: one is that I have been in acquiring mode with body fat, and acquiring is very much against my nature; and the other is that I am failing to get something done. And I suppose there’s a third reason in there, too: failing to get something done means that that something still needs to get done at some point, and one of the things that a minimalist hates is having anything on his to-do list.

Not all minimalists are like that though. Some have a very zen feeling about life. Interviewee Kareen from Ottawa says: “I don’t know about ‘happy’ but I’m a peaceful person. Maybe being a minimalist pulls one out of the vicious circle of wanting-buying-getting bored-wanting another thing-buying it-getting eventually bored of it, too, etc., which is a good start to be happy.”

Leaving People

Romance

There’s a story in one of Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard’s books, The Sickness Unto Death, about the king who doesn’t want a confidant but also feels the need for one. He confides in someone but then has the person killed so that he, the king, can again be free of the burden of having a confidant.

Alas, when my minimalism prevails, I am like that. I have similar fears. I fight hard against my temptation or the need to acquire a few things. I get them into my home, make a place for them, accept them, and over time some of these things become just things that I have. I know where they are and they are accepted. However, especially in those first days before I have fully accepted the thing, when it’s still on probation so to speak, there is always the chance if not the likelihood that I will get rid of it before it has a chance to insinuate itself into my life and heart.

The analogy with personal, and especially romantic, relationships is unfortunately obvious and apt. You may edge your way into my minimalist life but my tendency will always be to get rid of you. Not because I necessarily dislike you, not because you’re likely to do something wrong, not because I am bad or you are bad. It is just my manner and my obsession, my way of being in the world. I don’t want anything. I don’t want anyone. Things and people are messy.