A useless guide to minimalism

Modern minimalism is generating quite some buzz these days, and what better time to explain it a bit than when I'm at work and supposed to do some report I don't want to do? My manager is sitting next to me and my clickety thrumming seems to keep him quiet and hopeful I'll do the report after all. Let's dig in, then.

First of all, this isn't something new; we all have a dose of minimalism within ourselves and employ it in day-to-day activities and interactions, to a certain extent. It is not a recent discovery, unless for the uneducated and irrational that waste paper and screen estate with their copious gushing. It is nothing more than common sense that helps with self-preservation and avoiding the unnecessary. For instance, you may wish to manifest it when you're supposed to chip in for a gift for a person you don't really like. I choose to employ it whenever boring tasks are being assigned. Or any task that doesn't involve eating some cake. In reasonable amounts, it makes life better and comfortable. Take it to extreme, though, and it ends up doing more harm than good. Just like anything in excess (except for that caramel cake you thought you'd hidden in the back of the fridge behind Janet's salad box before leaving for meetings).

With the risk of sounding like Deepak Chopra, modern minimalists are people for whom enough is not enough, but the other way around. They're boring wasteful nihilist narcissists lacking the afore-mentioned common sense.
Here's how to become one.

Throw away anything that does not bring you joy (their advice). Start with one unnecessary object. Today. Continue with two objects tomorrow. And so on. You get it. For lack of inspiration, start with your boss' umbrella (my advice). Tomorrow chuck one of his gloves and that book you said you'd start reading two years ago. In a four weeks, your life will be less cluttered and you will be happy. If you're married, make it a seven months. Of course, if you were slightly organized when you began you could end up homeless and naked, too. Crass generalization aside, I find some issues with this "logic". It is a narrow view that can only suit people with more money and useless stuff than common sense.
Sooner or later, this approach will incur additional costs.
There are objects that do not bring joy but you should not throw away, for obvious reasons. The snow shovel, for example. It brings me no joy when I use it to clear the driveway and its contribution to the aesthetic outlook of the shed is rather negligible. It beats being hungry and snowed in at home, though. It could even bring some satisfaction, however, if I used to beat the pompous pricks who find it smarter to pay someone else an amount of money to shovel their snow while they're shaking their ass at the gym because they cannot imagine another way to work out a bit. I could also use it to beat the inconsiderate minimalists that find it pointless to spend money on headphones and listen to crap music on the phone speaker on the subway near me. Come to think of it, a shovel would bring me a lot of joy in a lot of scenarios.
Another great example that quickly comes to mind is the toolbox. I sure as hell wouldn't keep it for the joy it brings, save for beating minimalists with a hammer when the shovel is broken. But without it, how could I fix a shelf that's come loose? If it's the shelf where I keep the toolbox, where would I keep the toolbox then?
This is not a very exhaustive list by far, but I hope it helps you understand. Besides, my manager has left for lunch and I can shift my focus away from the keyboard, to the dark quiet conference room I booked for a minimalist afternoon nap.

But before I turn in I would like to end on an optimistic note. Because minimalism is a good thing, that helps you spend less time cleaning up. And if baristas practiced it to get rid of all the joy-killing clutter, the coffee-shops would be more enjoyable without teenagers sporting truck tyre earrings and indoor fake fur jackets whilst hogging the tables all day long with their MacBooks and a coffee with 8 words in the title. And there would be no coffees with 8 words in the title on the menu, either.

Struggle

This is serious. You do not know it yet, but it is.
You do not even know what it is when you find it. It just is. Right there, with you. It was an accident, new and confusing. It felt good, though. You want to understand it. You want it to happen again.
But how?

You cannot ask your parents about it. Nor anyone else that could guide you through the maze. You are at a point in life when so many things are happening, but you cannot tell them about a kiss, let alone this. You would not even trust your best friends with such secret. But you do ask, eventually. And they are just as clueless as you are. Some may have done it already, too. For some, that time has not come yet. Regardless, no one is the wiser. Some pretend to.
They aren't.

It is all right, it is not yet the time for you to know. Nor them. You have barely escaped your cocoon and walked a few steps in the dark. Enlightenment is still far. True knowledge is not here for now. It comes later in life. And even then, it is too fragile. Too volatile to put your finger on it and say "there it is".

But then, it happens. Again. When you least expect it. Always caught by surprise. But it does not matter. All that matters is that it is here with you. All you know is that it feels good. It does not matter you still can not fully grasp it. You are on top of the world and enjoying every moment of it. No time to spend on thinking of consequences. You do not even fathom the possibility. You only know it is getting better and better.
You are getting better and better.

And then, you plateau. You still want it, of course. But... Maybe, just maybe, a smidge less? Maybe it is the novelty that has worn off. But then, as time goes by, sometimes you almost feel like you had enough for now. Maybe later. Maybe another day.
Until one day...

That cursed day. The day when you lose control. When it all falls apart. Suddenly, the beautiful universe collapses. You have lost control. And this time it is not like in the beginning. It is no longer something that secret only you knew and cherished. Now you feel exposed. You feel like everybody knows your secret. And nobody can understand your pain and the shame. Fear settles in. You are struggling for a catch of breath. You clench every fiber of every muscle in your body. With surgical precision, you are struggling to fill the void. To avoid the unavoidable. But it is too late now.
You are suffocating.

But it is not too late. Tomorrow is another day, and you are still alive. Yesterday's memory still hurts, but not as much. As time goes by, it becomes bearable. It fades away. And while you never forget it, you learn to live with it.
You even get the courage to try again.

From the moment when you caught that first glimpse of joy to the darkest hour, the blessed of us have been there, too. We got drunk in the blissful moments and fought through the darker ones.
From the first time. To the last. And all the times in between. Basking in the warm, mysterious, light or drowning in the dark unknown.

But no matter where you were, the answer was always there with you.
Grapes and yogurt.