Why minimalism makes so much sense…
Minimalism sounds like a simple concept but it is actually a lot harder to understand.
Below is my hypothesis why it makes a lot of sense.
Our brain is only 2% of our weight but consumes about 20 percent of the body’s energy in a resting state. It may increase to 32% during stress.
When we look at objects in a room, we continuously process a lot of visual information. We go through our attention mechanism to figure out where we want to give our attention to. That can change every time we look at a room. That is why we see different objects at different times, some objects we don’t notice.
Behind each of these objects, there could be a lot of memories associated. This process may be happening in your conscious mind or unconscious mind. All these take a lot of energy from your brain and it leaves less and less time for your brain to create new thoughts. You get stuck in the past with these thoughts coming over and over.
If any of these objects remind you of a stressful event, that will make it worse.
There was a time I use to keep my google home display with random photos from the library. Every time I pass by, I kept seeing different photos of my past and it would take me to those days. What I realized was I was getting way more tired by end of the day and I was getting struck to my past.
When I changed the image of google home to the minimalistic digital clock, it was so much easier to look at.
Minimalism is a way to reduce these objects that leads to unnecessary processing for you and make way for your brain and mind to bring in fresh new thoughts in the present time.
People confuse this concept with saving money to even eating less food. Those are different priorities and have nothing to do with minimalism.
Minimalism is a way to unclutter your life, look around and take away objects that don’t add value to life, and keep only what you really want or use.
It is way harder than it sounds, not everyone would agree on which objects make sense. It is always a balance. The people who stay together decide the essential objects they want to keep.
Here is another example of two bedrooms.
This is not an easy journey and I may be far from perfect. But removing objects which don’t make sense in your life does give you some joy. Maybe those objects give joy to some others.
