Give Money

One of the hardest part of being a minimalist is giving up all the stuff. Like all people, I see things and desire them, and in most cases can actually justify a purchase, but the truth is that everything ends up in the trash. Every single thing that has ever been made by man has been rendered into the dust from whence it was born. A television exists in the carefully engineered state of television for a remarkably short time. Very few of the first televisions ever made even work today, and none of them are employed to watch modern television. Where did all these millions of T.V.'s go? the landfill. Just like every favorite toy or dolly, just like everything that will be ever made. The lifetime of all things is finite.

Of course, sometimes even the grim picture of my cherished, childhood Han Solo action figure fading and decomposing into the base materials of the universe can't stop me from buying something, I must counter it with equal parts good, so I give money to charity.

The way I figure it, spending $49 on a video game is O.K. as long as I give $50 to a worthwhile cause. This equal pairing of funds slakes the immediate desire for worldly things and benefits me in the larger, universal sense as well. Getting ones mind around the idea that helping others is good for the self is a little difficult at first, so I will provide an anecdote. (Note: Never accept an anecdote as evidence or just cause of anything.)


I work with a nice lady who lost her son to violence. The details are unclear, but he was a young man gunned down over some stupid thing. He was in his teens and a poet. Personally, I love poetry, and thought it a terrible shame for this world to have one less lithe mind for pondering, so when work offered to let me leave early to attend the one year memorial service, I went. I won't bother with the details, but I will say it was sad. Really, really, sad. I wept openly and without trepidation, as one should at such times. Friends, family and even strangers rose at will to say something about the departed. They talked about the young man, played CD tracks he liked and sang songs. I have attended a few wakes, funerals and memorials, but this one was the most pure. The place was a storefront church in an old auto garage, in a really bad neighborhood, but they honored him and it felt like the walls were leafed in gold. I decided right then that guns were bad and started giving cash to anti-gun lobbying groups. No mother should ever have to bury her only child. EVER. But how much? I am not a rich man and this minimalism thing was only just starting to produce real savings in contrast to my old ways. That was when I came up with the formula:

Half for you, half for me.

If I spend $30 on something that I don't need, I give an equal sum to one of several reputable causes. This was meant to curb my spending and exercise my generous nature. Now what I get from this is important. I don't throw money away for liberal ideals, I get something for my money. If making gun sale, ownership, and possession a pain in the ass means that one more young poet lives, and one more mother doesn't have to bury her son, and that I don't have to go to these services to be reduced to a blubbering mess in front of my co-workers, well that is worth it for me.

Everyone has a story like this, and you too can try the formula. Obviously I don't ACTUALLY give half my expendable income to charity, but percentage-wise I am an order of magnitude more generous than the average American. I recommend:

OXFAM - the connoisseur's choice for charity. Focused on poverty on a global scale, the finest minds in altruism swear by it.

Lupus Foundation - a terrible disease about which, little is known.

Stop the NRA - prevent gun violence through legislation, education, and outrage.

USO - Support the troops? You fucking hypocrite, take that sticker off your truck and give to the USO.

Special Olympics - Because the special olympics are just awesome.

Pine Street Inn - This one comes right out of my check. Being homeless sucks ass.

Humane Society - I love PETA, but they are a little too extreme. The humane society is more realistic for the animal lover.

I love Elvis

It's a little late, but I still need to pay my respects to the King of Rock and Roll, Elvis Aaron Presley. A great performer, he opened many minds to a style of music that is universal today. Anytime anyone can open a mind, that is a good thing. He still has some penance to do for the movies though.

I was especially pleased to see that Reese's, a most delicious candy bar, has honored Elvis in a creative way: A Reese's peanut butter cup with banana creme. A co-worker gave me one of these totally ignorant of my love of Elvis, and I was planning on cherishing it forever, but instead I ate it. It was awesome.

Keep the King in your hearts people, and you will never do wrong.

Software

I have a software recommendation. Nocturne has been around for a while and what it does is invert your desktop. I know, ctrl+option+command+8 will do that too, but this gives you more control over the inversion and adjusts tones and subtle stuff. My eyes hurt from staring at the screen for a long time, plus I am nostalgic for the old Mac SE simple monochrome desktop, so this is perfect. It can even be set to respond to the light meter built into my fancy, way too expensive notebook. A darker screen uses less power, which is the idea behind sites like Blackle.com and you get a lower bill or better battery life. I thought I would get sick of it by now, but in low light conditions I prefer the mild sepia tone.

Its free from the genius of Quicksilver fame, the launcher that launched launchers. No one else has even come close to the awesomeness of Quicksilver though. Go get some Goth for your desktop! It's free!

Drink Tea

I drink a lot of tea. It's not something that came naturally, I used to be a coffee drinker, but in my defense that didn't come naturally either. At an old job there was free coffee from a service and the old room mate worked in a fledgling Starbuck's franchise. In a single day I would have consumed upwards of 13 cups of coffee, free of charge. The most productive and destructive time in my whole life.

The tea drinking I picked up from my mother's neighbors, a pair of lovely sisters from County Mayo. They would be on the adjoined porch when I came home and I simply could not pass them by without sitting for an hour or two. They scoffed at my sickening black coffee and offered me tea instead. At first it was an odd adjustment, it was dark like coffee but there wasn't the same explosion of energy. Sleeping, however, became possible and I noticed my bowel movements held together.

There is study after study revealing teas efficacy in treating this syndrome or that disease, but in fact - those things are all bullshit. If I experienced any health boost from drinking tea it was by eliminating soda and coffee from my diet. The versatility of tea, its range of flavors and colors, and the ease of brewing it is why I choose it now. I have had many HORRIBLE cups of coffee, some that were so nasty I poured them out after one sip, but tea really can't get screwed up.

The added bonus, tea uses little packaging. I buy it loose, but there is always the traditional tea bag. Between 80 - 300 servings come in one small container, when contrasted to 80 - 300 plastic bottles or aluminum cans you can visualize the benefit. I have seen pure unbleached special paper tea bags, which is overkill to the extreme. Really, the day tea bags become an ecological time bomb I will be a happy man.

A few tips:

Don't leave the tea bag in the water. Once it reaches your desired strength, take it out. Think of a stank, nasty pond, and all the gross leaves and stuff steeping in it. That is what your drink will become. This is the most common mistake of all.

Don't pour hot water directly on the tea bag. You can scorch tea and ruin it. This is especially true for green teas, which have to be brewed at a lower temperature. For green and lighter color teas, pour the water in first and let it cool down a bit, then add the tea. Don't forget to take it out.

If you add milk, sugar, lemon or whatever (I have used maple syrup) do it after. There is no reason for this, but a saturation point is lower with debris in the water. I am a puritan.

Wear dark colors. The probability of spilling shit all over yourself is high, and tea stains are a bitch to get out. Don't forget to brush your teeth. They get nasty quick.

Wrap

This wrap diagram has appeared on a few sites I troll for minimalism stuff. Basically you take a 90cm x 90cm silk, nylon or rayon cloth and fold it just so to carry things around; I particularly liked the book wrap. Being a form - unfamiliar - to your local bag boy, I recommend you practice a few of these before your hump off to the store. The Constitution has not been amended with the "Right to Convenience," but the harumphs of ten people in line behind you as you meticulously wrap all your groceries will speed legislation along.