Beyond Good and Minimalism

The true free spirit and the philosopher of the future, according to Nietzsche, will be…

full of malice against the seductions of dependency, [which are] concealed in honors, money, positions, or exaltation of the senses, [he is] grateful even for distress and the vicissitudes of illness, because they always free us from some rule, and its “prejudice”… [He is] inquisitive to a fault… with unhesitating fingers for the intangible, with teeth and stomachs for the most indigestible, ready for any business that requires sagacity and acute senses, ready for every adventure…

Beyond Good and Evil, §44

Though I never take Nietzsche seriously, I often appropriate his thoughts to suit my own purposes. In this case, it is done for my lifelong struggle with minimalism, that phony pseudo-religion that would have one always at war with one’s stuff. Simultaneously, I have loved having and not having; I have exulted at regular purges of my possessions, and I always have an eye on what will be next, the release of which enacts greater space and ever more freedom (from what?… weight or responsibility?).

Walden was an early influence. I imagined myself in a rough-hewn space, a run of beans my sustenance, my only friends the birds and whatever else I discovered on my daily walks. But that was a fantasy; I now live in comfortable air-conditioning.

Still, in order to fight the “seductions of dependency,” I now attempt to distill my mind, the vapor rising into the air and disappearing being those books that no longer fit my direction, the clutter of the soul, the failed experiment of yesterday’s thoughts, or the socks never worn anymore. Though Nietzsche would have me ruthless with the world; I would be satisfied with ruthlessness against myself, bringing about, a la Thoreau, simplicity, simplicity.

I know how to live humbly, and I know how to abound. I am accustomed to any and every situation–to being filled and being hungry, to having plenty and having need.