Essays

Pursuit of Freedom: Minimalism

Total freedom amounts to the capacity to live and die by one's own standards. For years, people have emphasized utter minimalism - harboring within one's possessions hearty valuables and all that they need to survive - the rest provided by nature, such as food and water. Entertainment embedded itself in the beauty of what stood around them: trees towering, a foundation to history; flowers in bloom with their variances in scents and its own individual and unfathomable case of loveliness which pleased their aesthetic senses.

And, thusly, escaping within the wilds to achieve a fulfilling simplicity, and foretold by persons like Emerson and Thoreau, is wholly justified. After all, materialistic ideals result in aching - a feeling borne when one cannot reach the wealth necessary for the latest gadgets and attendance to upcoming events.

The only thing the average human needs is nature, our creator. Detaching oneself from the societal greed would free oneself of the growing ache and yearn for miscellaneous items. Crowing one's greed and necessitation on miscellaneous items is the grandest demonstration of the ache and negative impact it has upon the masses. It is from that ache that one must leave, and instead nestle into simplicity.

While convenience makes life simple in a manner of speaking, and is simple in its definition, it has become something it need not be: the lust for money, for irrelevancies, and most of all, for what one does not require to sustain oneself.

There should be no cause of ache and no cause for sorrow brewed from these technological and materialistic advancements, and yet it persists. The poor looks upon the wealthy in envy of what they could do and what they have: mansions filled with pointless rooms, VIP access, backstage tickets to meet another human, and so much more. These concepts are nothing more than trivialities, and for whatever reason, it cycles and harms the mind. One should find comfort in their position instead of longing for what they are unable to have; a chair is a chair no matter what look it comes in, a bed is a bed no matter how big it is. At the end of the day, a disparaging longing brings sorrow instead of sanctity. 

Therefore, one must strive for comfort, and love their situation. To do this to one's utmost ability, they must become independent of society. This does not require fleeing into the woods to be with their self, but freeing themselves, and realizing what they need and what their valuables are. Some find this in isolation, in traversing across the country and visiting the national parks - living life to the fullest on what little is needed, and experiencing what the world has to offer.

Must one travel to experience and find happiness? Must the wild be the only form of separation from societal opinion and materialism? Not at all. How someone goes about finding their sliver of comfortability is entirely up to them, even if it were indulgence and herd conformity or some lessened extent of such. Live life to the fullest and seek your freedoms. Become independent of the society and strive for your ideals. Love your life for what it is rather than brew distaste for what it isn't.

After all, total freedom amounts to the capacity to live and die by one's own standards. You cannot do that if you restrict yourself based on the desires of others - by the rest of humanity. You cannot do that if you are consumed by what is unnecessary to your life. As Thoreau once said: "Simplify, simplify!"