The Conclusion, in Which Nothing Is Concluded

Conclusion and acknowledgments.

Transcript

The Conclusion, in Which Nothing Is Concluded

Living the Life of a Minimalist

At the end of Samuel Johnson’s tale Rasselas, the five travellers contem-plate what they’ve learned after their journey in search of happiness, and each comes up with a personal idea of what could make them happier in the future. It makes for a good discussion while they are waiting for the flooding of the Nile to subside, but “of those wishes that they had formed they well knew that none could be obtained,” and so they just decide to return home.

I’ve reached a similar destination in this book, in which I’ve tried to elucidate, for the reader and to some extent for myself, what my own minimalist traits and tendencies are. I’ve ended up right back where I started, but that’s not a bad thing necessarily. I don’t suffer from the more extreme spartanism, but I’ve been a minimalist for so long that I’m constantly aware of the sometimes harmful paths that I lead myself down if I’m not smart enough to steer myself right now and then. I try to keep the general life goal in mind of appreciating and nurturing my relationships with people – all relationships, with friends, family, acquaintances, colleagues, and all others who somehow make their way into my life. I don’t always succeed at that.

Practicing minimalism, at least my own brand of it, can have a way of blinding or distracting me. I have a tendency to become so focused on keeping my surroundings spare and getting rid of things that I forget the bigger goals of comfort, ease, and a sense of contentment with what I have (and don’t have), with who I’ve become, and with the people that I’ve been lucky enough to gather around me.

While writing this book, I received a card from my mother. Just as we have different habits of collecting – I don’t and she does – we also have different tastes in greeting cards, too. I buy the blank cards with no pre-printed message on them, but the cards from my mother are always the ones with a rhyme of one length or another, and exclamation marks, and often with only a tangential reference to the occasion being celebrated. That is always compensated for, though, by the simple, honest beauty of her own complementary sentiment written on the card in that script, printing rather than writing, that always reminds me of her and of all we’ve experienced together.

Part of the message from my mother in this card was simply: “Keep working on your stories.” She has always used the word to refer to whatever writing project I happen to be doing (short stories, novels, non-fiction), but I like the fact that in this case, with this book, “stories” suggests that it might all be easily fixable just by slightly editing a habit, or moving a bit of my basic character from here to there, or initiating a whole range of big and small changes that would make both the collectors and the minimalists, the spartans and the hoarders, all more balanced and satisfied in the end.

Works Cited

Alexander, Samuel, and Simon Ussher. The voluntary simplicity movement: A multi-national survey analysis in theoretical context. Journal of Consumer Culture 12 (2012), 66-86

Anderson, Kelly. Telephone interview with Wayne Jones, Sept. 23, 2012

Arnold, Jeanne E., Anthony P. Graesch, Enzo Ragazzini, and Elinor Ochs. Life at home in the twenty-first century: 32 families open their doors (Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, 2012)

Barth, F. Diane. Email interview with Wayne Jones, Mar. 10, 2013

Beecher, Timothy S. Questioning the consumer culture: A qualitative study on voluntary simplicity (Ph.D. dissertation, University of North Dakota, 2007)

Charbit, Annabelle. Hoarding vs. clutter phobia: Which one is really OCD? HealthMad, Nov. 2, 2011, http://healthmad.com/mental-health/hoarding-vs-clutter-phobia-which-one-is-really-ocd/

Charbit, Annabelle. Radio interview by Glynn Greensmith. It’s Just Not Cricket. Perth, Australia, 720 ABC, Nov. 16, 2012, http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=sdhXXV9k8jQ

Days of darkness, dir. Denys Arcand (Cinémaginaire, 2007)

GypsyAtHeart. Comment posted on message, Can you identify with this “opposite-of-hoarding” attitude, http://www.fluther.com/79596/can-you-identify-with-this-opposite-of-hoarding-attitude/#quip1791283, Jan. 12, 2011

Johnson, Samuel. Rasselas (1759)

Kierkegaard, Søren. The sickness unto death (1849)

Mallinger, Allan. The myth of perfection: Perfectionism in the obsessive personality. American Journal of Psychotherapy 63 (2009), 103-129  

Minimalissimo, http://minimalissimo.com/

Never enough, dir. Kelly Anderson (Anderson Gold Films, 2010)

Sartre, Jean-Paul. The imaginary (1940)

Shi, David E. The simple life: Plain living and high thinking in American culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985)

Touching the void, dir. Kevin Macdonald (Darlow Smithson Productions, 2003)

Acknowledgments and Thanks

Amber, Kelly Anderson, F. Diane Barth, Carl, Eugene, Judith Hazlett, Wayne Johnston, Maxine Jones, Kareen, Oscar Martens, Mel Simoneau

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Wayne Jones lives in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

WayneJones.ca