IV. Consumption
Over U-M spring break, I mooch off of my friend’s Netflix account and put on Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things. The film stars Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus, the two men behind the incredibly successful and well-known blog, The Minimalists, who, in some ways, really live up to the title of being the minimalists. They are extremely well-known within the sphere of minimalist lifestyle living. Their blog is populated with multiple essays on various aspects of minimalism, they run a podcast, and they have also self-published a series of books on minimalist living. This documentary follows their book tour journey and discusses their philosophy, how they came to minimalism, and their journey of promoting both the lifestyle and its benefits with those they meet.
First things first: Isn’t the concept of a book tour basically to promote consumption of a product, and isn’t that kind of antithetical to the idea of material minimalism they so seek to purport? Commodification in action! Another thing that strikes me is how spiritual their narrative is. As much as Millburn and Nicodemus say they aren’t proselytizing, they really are. As with multiple writings on minimalist lifestyle out there, they follow a similar testimony. Kyle Chayka summarizes it excellently as such: “Each book contains an easy structure of epiphany and aftermath, recounting the crisis that leads its author to minimalism, the minimalist metamorphosis and then the positive ways the author’s life changed.”
The Minimalists are no different. Both of them achieved initial success, making six-figure salaries in the tech or finance sectors, but found the work hollow and walked away. Their motto became: “Love people, use things”, and share the gospel of finding deeper meaning in life by owning less. I am not trying to invalidate the difficult situations each of them endure. One of them struggled with a failing marriage, and the other had his mother get diagnosed with stage four cancer. These are traumatic life events that warrant reflection and, understandably, can trigger a new way of living. Their explanations are compelling and charismatic, and I can empathize with their positions. They discuss how humans are wired for dissatisfaction, and that people will always desire newer and better things. They also note that humans are wired for social connection, but with the way society makes individuals more and more lonely, the attachment for people might spill over into material possessions, resulting in a compulsive hoarding issue that plagues many people. They argue that controlling one’s external surroundings and reducing their dependence on material goods while owning less improves one’s internal state. Minimalism, to them, is a tool to foster peace and harmony between the external environment and the internal psyche.
The compulsive hoarder is the exact clientele featured on the hit Netflix series, Tidying Up With Marie Kondo. I never really understood why this show was so popular. I watched one episode with my sister over the summer and we both found it ridiculous, as we found the extent of the mess incredible, and believed the spectacle Kondo created to be mildly exaggerated and kitsch. We just didn’t understand the appeal. Catharsis maybe? I decided to give it another shot while working on this research. Watching Marie Kondo convince a woman to get rid of her excessive nutcrackers and deal with her mountain of clothes, I could definitely notice the roots of her practice in spirituality. What I used to puzzle at, wondering if it was spectacle or spiritual, was her process of thanking the house and the objects.
Upon researching her, I came to realize how much of the bigger picture I was missing when I didn’t understand how spirituality, specifically, Japanese Shintoism, influenced her practice. Kondo spent much of her life visiting Shinto shrines, and even worked as a miko, or shrine maiden, for five years of her youth. Something that Tidying Up With Marie Kondo doesn’t really cover is the roots of Kondo’s practice in Shintoism - possibly to make it more palatable to an audience that doesn’t want religion forced down their throat. A key tenet of Shintoism is the idea that there are spirits, known as kami, present in every human, nature, place, and even inanimate objects. This explains her deep regard for all the objects she tidies, tapping books to ‘wake them up’, thanking each object for its service, or introducing herself to the house. There is a deep connection between the material and the spiritual, and I believe that material-spiritual element is what makes Kondo stand out compared to every other house cleaning and professional organizing guru out there. She makes decluttering and tidying bigger than the material and immediate. She links it to spirituality and well-being, offering a more metaphysical motivation for purging, downsizing and tidying up. When she empowers people to tidy up, she empowers them spiritually. That not only makes for a good Netflix spectacle, but offers something new, something to fill a gaping hole of spirituality in this modern society. So it is both spectacular and spiritual.