Embracing Minimalism

I received the most incredible belated birthday present from my daughters yesterday. It was so big that it had to be transported back to the UK in the hold of an aircraft, with its own baggage tag too! Now it’s sitting here in my apartment, urging me to enjoy it, but I hardly dare even take the wrapper off for fear of destroying its amazing symmetry and perfection.

I’ve been resisting the acquisition of new possessions for a while. Really, I need to divest myself of material goods rather than accrue more. In this respect I am planning to sell my car, which is a great brute of a thing designed to knead my ego and which tells me that I can gain respect by driving it. What a load of hogwash – few people that I know could give a flying fuck regarding what car I drive, and even fewer would think any less of me if I didn’t drive it. The little boy in me thinks that trappings of this sort are essential to any sense of well-being, whereas the rationalist in me says: “Embrace The Wank” (which is actually the title of a poem written by an absolutely fabulous performance poet I once met who goes by the name of Luke Wright – details of whom can be found here).

So, goodbye car – hello minimalism. I’ve worked out that the cash I will realize from the sale of the car will buy roughly 891 bottles of good whisky. All of life is impermanence, and whereas it is true that a car is impermanent (i.e. it will devalue, rot, and eventually fall apart), whisky is a lot more impermanent in as much as it comes out of the bottle, enters the body, and then disappears into the sewer. If the object of life is to achieve impermanence, then whisky (rather than the car) is obviously the way to go. In my lifetime (long and tortured) I’ve probably already drunk 891 bottles of whisky anyway. If I hadn’t done that, then I wouldn’t now need to sell my car in order to survive. Well, as conundrums go, this one is a right bamboozler. My head is gyrating just to think about it.

In my next posting, I aim to tell you about the brief spell I had as a “pillar of society” (very Ibsen-esque). It’s true, I once did. I might also contrive to find an excuse to use the word fetid which – in my opinion – is a much underused adjective.

Until then...