Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life by Joshua Fields Millburn
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This was my Audible registration freeby. Because of the service’s horrible DRM I had to go through a multi-step procedure to get the files in MP3 on my mobile phone to listen to while walking around. Many thumbs down for counterintuitive marketing and copyright infringement boogeymen.
I first got to know about The Minimalists through their blog, their essays and their links to and from other awesome people with awesome blogs like Julien Smith or Leo Babauta. I thought they had some advanced ideas and wanted to get more in-depth. I thought, (mis)guided by the way they advertise the book, that by reading it I would be getting to enjoy content they don’t have on their blog. That is true to a certain extent: the complete backstory of Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus isn’t presented very clearly on the blog but the book features a whole chapter on the way the minimalists quit their six-figure salary jobs and set out on their quest for happiness and meaning. This chapter was the only one that contained information that was unknown to me. If one has already read their blog, their disection of the meaning of life into five pillars and related material won’t be very enlightening. It has some solid advice inspired by their lives and experiences as well as exercises anyone can do to find out how they can contribute more, be healthier, have more meaningful relationships etc. — all on the basis of minimalism. This information is geared, I felt, toward people that have never looked into minimalism before and works as a self-help, change-your-life guide, just like what the subtitle so magnanimously promises. If again one has read and enjoyed their essays, they might be disappointed by the lack of focus and depth. That is why I’d much sooner recommend their blog than this book.
Nevertheless, there is some value to this “finest, most important creation to date”: having a concise, basic yet radical handbook on the steps one must take to cut off the excess (the “excrement”, as Shevek would have it) is always useful if only for the connection the reader can have to the book, the physical presence which can work as a reminder for one to act on what they’ve learned. I might not own the printed book to look at and remember what I’ve learned, going through the notes the authors had asked me to make if I wanted to see progress and inspire change. I can appreciate, however, the fact that there is significant value in this kind of connection, a relationship which is much more difficult to cultivate on the web due to its apparent weaknessses: distractability, pluralism and low retention among them.