5 posts tagged “minimalism”

I've been steadily reducing my commitments to things, especially those that I was doing because I felt I "should," and those that have lost their flavor for me, regardless of motivations going in.

I've been examining my motivations for doing all of the things I try to do at once and starting to feel that I've done all the examination I need to do for now.

As I open up my life more and more....now things are starting to happen...somebody that I haven't talked to in months called me today and asked if I would be interested in helping her produce a demo CD of her songs.  I will take that incident as the official kickoff of going with the flow of life (and ending this round of self-reflection)...

(BTW, I asked her to ask me again in a month...no diving into commitments until I let this next phase "happen")

• a 1GB memory stick
• a miniature golf scorecard
• a web business outline
• instructions for using FL Studio and Reason (both music software) together
  
• 58 cents of change
• a guitar tuner
• 9 pens
• a highlighter
• a dishcloth (for wrapping frozen bottle of water I bring to work)
• a pack of gum
• pocket pack of kleenex
• latest bill for my car
• an envelope with my name on it (empty--just went into the trash)
• The Art of War
• a doctor bill
• a pocket journal
• nail clippers
• a workbook, two textbooks, and a journal for a spiritual healing class I'm taking
• CD: The Seduction of Claude Debussy by The Art of Noise
• CD: La Sandunga by Lila Downs
  

I'm going to continue the (mostly mental) analysis I've been doing but I am becoming aware that an answer is beginning to well up in my heart.  So...I will spend a few more days in my introspection but then I'll turn it over to my heart and let it give me the answer in its own time.

So, I've outlined my negatives of focusing on only one thing.  Most of them looked like fears to me, and I'm betting that most of those fears are unfounded.  But it was nice to let them out.

Now for the positives of focusing on one project at a time:

• all my creative energy gets channeled into one area...this should result in higher returns
• it frees me up to "work when I'm working, relax when I'm relaxing."  I don't always have to feel like "I should be doing something else"
  
• more time on that activity means more improvement of my talent level
• more likely to find my "voice."  You can get good at something but to find your unique voice takes a commitment beyond just "working at it"
• I feel less confused about what I should be doing
• I feel less "scattered."  Five years ago this wouldn't have meant anything because I could work on lots of different things without feeling any problems.  But life changes, and now I feel that there is too much going on.
  

These positives are pretty powerful.  I especially like the part about finding my "voice" in whatever it is I'm doing.

I am into everything.  I've got tons of projects in various states of completion: websites, music projects, music practice, fiction writing, nonfiction writing, an art festival I want to run next spring, a HAM radio project I would like to kick off, languages (living and dead) that I would love to learn, and more.

Given that I have MAYBE five hours a week to put into passions like this....something has to go.

I've talked about minimalism of possessions.  What about minimalism of activities?  Minimalism of targets of passion?

Even this list of ten or so projects is a reduction for me.  Thinking about reducing it to three...two...one?...is painful for me.  I've made a quick list of my fears of focusing on one project or hobby:

• what if it doesn't carry all the rewards I'm seeking?
• what if I can't do it as well as I like?
• what if I would have been amazing at something that I dropped?
• what if I get bored with it?
• what happens to the other ideas I have? Do they die?
  

and, of course...

• WHAT IF I PUT ALL THAT EFFORT INTO IT AND I'M STILL NO GOOD AT IT??

A few years ago in China I saw a guy riding a bike down the street.  He had hooked some kind of platform to the back of it and on it he was carrying a pig, two chickens, a bale of hay, a suitcase with clothes hanging out of it, and twenty other things, the stack of it towering over his head.  My life right now feels as if I had thought I was out on a Sunday afternoon ride and I just turned around to notice I was carrying all those things on the back of my bike.

The difference being: that guy in China knew what he was carrying, and probably knew why, and what he was going to do with it.

I need to be more intentional with my life.  I want to be more intentional with my life.

Throughout my house I have papers I am not going to look at again.  I've got books that I'm not going to open.  I have remnants of hobbies that no longer thrill me.

This is a scarcity mentality: the fear that I may throw out the one thing that I would end up needing.  That somewhere in there is the secret to my happiness...or a key brick in the foundation.  Or that I will lose a part of myself.

But I am starting to become aware of how much I'm losing by being overburdened.

Tonight I came home from work and had the house to myself for about half an hour.  During that time I turned on a drum machine and played my bass.  Nobody else heard it.  I wasn't trying to learn a new technique.  I wasn't writing a song.  I was just getting into the groove...it was meditation.

The life I want to live is not going to come about by accident.  It's going to take a vision and a lot of work.

It's time for the vision.