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Jun 08

Radical minimalism is modern asceticism

Apropos of my last post, I came across two very relevant pieces. One on the success of paper as an interface (we forget that paper is a successful technical achievement) and one in Time on radical minimalism.

This flight from materialism seems to be part of the national zeitgeist. Many of us are overwhelmed by modern life in all its complexity and ambiguity. At a certain level, has modern life become opposed to our basic nature? Partly due to temperament, I look back and wonder if we lived better lives a few generations ago when the tendency was to stay near family and to live simply with more humble expectations for what life had to offer. Aside from advances in prosperity and medicine, have we improved the quality of our lives?

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