“I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience.”
From Walden, by Henry David Thoreau
The idea expressed in the quote above is so appealing to me. I often dream of what it would be like to be rid of almost everything I currently possess. To strip down to only what is essential.
I’ll admit that I do enjoy my things. Some bring me joy. Others I appreciate for their utility. But there is a tantalizing liberation in having less stuff. Less to take care of. Less to consider if one day you want to hit the open road. Travel to a foreign land. Let go of convention. I’m glad my attachment to things is not extreme. I’m grateful for them, but if they were gone, I wouldn’t be devastated.
I need two lives. One with the comforts of my things. The other as an extreme minimalist.