A photo, quite identical to the one above, was featured in the Adbusters July/August issue, and as I looked at the worldly possessions of Mohandas Gandhi, a spiritual and political visionary that has inspired generations, I felt, well, guilty. As I am admittedly, a person of dramatic affect, my response was of no great surprise. [...]
My trip to the local landfill was complete confirmation that we should obsess about the things we own. Obsess about why we buy them, how we care for them and how we dispose of them. Acres of beautiful landscape dedicated to mashing our junk into the ground. Yuck. photo credit: phyllisalyse
The minimum could be defined as the perfection that an artefact achieves when it is not longer possible to improve it by subtraction. This is the quality that an object has when every component, every detail, and every junction has been reduced or condensed to the essentials. It is the result of the omission of [...]
Rather, for all objects and experiences, there is a quantity that has optimum value. Above that quantity, the variable becomes toxic. To fall below that value is to be deprived. -Gregory Bateson
do i own my belongings or do my belongings own me? in the midst of organizing my closet today, i asked myself that question several times. i can’t help but wonder, do i really need all of these things? the process of determining what is to be kept and what is to be discarded made [...]