Minimalism: dumping to start again

Part 2 from the series:What aesthetic movements from the internet can tell us about new beginnings in society?

Part 1 here.

By Maria Eduarda Ribeiro Cavalcanti

Scene from the movie "Happy Old Year" which talks evolves around a minimalist lifestyle

It's hard to maintain a life in a rural property, you either live from that life, or you are rich enough to have a job in the city and a cottage on the campo, or you have a flexible job that allows you to live where you want.

The minimalist lifestyle had its origin centuries ago, in some way or other, all the religions talk about abdicating our love for the material world or some kind of emotion, to adore the God from that religion. Even abdicating your whole life for that religion, like the Buddhist monks and the catholic priests.

But only in the '50s and '60s in New York City, the term "minimalist" gained the connotation we are familiar with, which revolves around the focus on the bigger picture, taking our everything small that does not matter. Soon, minimalism conquer not only the art scenario, as well as the urban architecture, and with the rising of social media, we can see an obsession with this lifestyle, which goes way beyond that Instagram picture of a white table with only one cup of black coffee with the caption "#minimalist"

Minimalism prioritizes a life where you feel complete, following the mantra " less is more". Being a minimalist is being unattached. Every object that we buy has some kind of meaning to us, but with the savage consumerism forced upon us by the capitalist society, if every object were to have some kind of sense, we could dare to say our lives have too much meaning. In reality, this "sense" has become the money, our power of acquisition

The hustle culture and our ambitions are so big that they have created a hyper-competitive world that suffocates us. Minimalism can be an escape from all of that. Minimalism makes us break the addicting cycle that is the pleasure of buying and owning an object, even though it may lose the sense to us in a matter of weeks.

Just like the cottagecore movement, minimalism it's about the appreciation of the spirit. Both movements require a level of self-recognition and unattachment from society, to be more exactly the capitalist society. But unlike the cottagecore movement, which is base on the rural area and evolves the enjoyment of wildlife, minimalism is more realistic. It's the intersection of this quiet and emptier space, that focuses strictly on what matters and on the object that possesses utility in our life that makes minimalism so easy to adopt.

For minimalist people, the environment affects and reflects our mental state, and if everything it's organized and clean, our minds will also be.

In the end, it does not matter if you prefer the sweet scenarios from the camp offered by the cottagecore, or if you like the quiet urban life given by the minimalism, or neither of them, as long as you feel good whenever and wherever you are.