If you want to be a Minimalist, you’ve got to be Fit

169 years later, Thoreau’s commandment still echoes across the surface of Walden Pond — “Simplify. Simplify!”  The logic has stood the test of time.  Seriously, could anyone want more complexity in life?

But that doesn’t mean simplifying is easy.

To simplify means to “make something easier to understand,” according to the first online dictionary definition that popped up when I typed the word into the search bar.  Understanding takes effort.  And time.  Both of which are in short supply.  So simplifying is a good thing — indeed, it’s the key to solving problems.  In this regard, simplify has a similar meaning to compute. 

Go Minimalist. Declutter Your Mind

Minimalism is a modern incarnation of an ancient philosophy — the premise is to simplify.  The minimalist would have you declutter your home.  Buy fewer things.  Save money.  Throw out unneeded stuff and create for yourself extra space and time.

Now let’s talk about decluttering your mind.  The minimalist would say, be skeptical.  About what you hear on the radio or see on TV or read in mainstream and social media.  Beware of experts with financial interests. Let go of outdated ideas.  Discount conventional wisdom and conformist thinking. Let go of your own rationalizations driven by ego and insecurity.  Free yourself from all that mental baggage.

You see, the mind is like a garden that’s gone to seed and needs some weeding.

Or is it?

Go Minimalist. Save the World.

The concept is typically presented as a lifestyle choice – buy fewer things.  Declutter.  Adopt the spirit, “less is more.”  Fight back against the forces of rampant consumerism.  You could limit your wardrobe to 33 items for 3 months and see if anyone notices (this is called taking “the Minimalist Fashion Challenge”).  You could live in a tiny house.  Or out of a pack.

Minimalism is nothing if not pragmatic.  Calculate the benefit of owning any consumer good, net of the costs of acquisition, storage, and disposal.  You will find the net benefit is often negative…

Barefoot in New Hampshire

It’s been a long, steep, rocky, wet climb up the mountain’s northern shoulder, and now I’m nearing the AMC hut tucked in a col beneath the summit of Mt. Madison. Another 500 feet to go, and I will have completed my quest – to climb all 48 of New Hampshire’s 4,000-footers, and to do so barefoot, which is how I hike and run these days.

8,000 Miles Barefoot

By Barefoot Ken

In April 2021, I reached my 7,000th mile of hiking, running, and walking barefoot, accumulated over roughly seven years.  Now — five months later — the mileage stands at 8,034.  I seem to be picking up the pace.  Which supports the thesis that practice makes you stronger (at least until age catches up).  The real thesis, though, is that life is better with more nature and less technology.

The Diogenes Challenge

The Nine is not for the faint of heart.  It’s a daunting 20-mile route which summits nine of the Catskill High Peaks — and it’s longer if you get lost, for what’s especially challenging is that five of the peaks have no trails, which means it’s necessary to “bushwhack” or move through the forest using map, compass, and GPS.  Even with this gear, navigation is no simple task, for the terrain is steep and rocky, and the forests thick and tangled, which renders “the eye of little service,” as Catskills author John Burroughs wryly noted.

I had completed the Nine, or parts thereof, on several occasions:  once trying to run it for speed, once at night, once in the winter.  In April 2016, as a novice barefoot hiker, I tried to complete the Nine without shoes, but after six of the peaks I’d had enough.  A year later I tried again and this time gave up after a single peak, defeated by the rocky trails.

Over time, my practice of running and hiking continued to evolve in a minimalist direction.  I developed an interest in “natural navigation” (moving through the forest without technology — meaning no map, no compass, no GPS).  I began to incorporate intermittent fasting into my dietary and training plans.  And I became somewhat more experienced at going barefoot.  One day these themes coalesced in my mind, and I came up with a grand plan:  to complete the Nine not only barefoot, but navigating naturally, and without carrying food or water.  I would call this the Diogenes Challenge, after the ancient Greek philosopher who advocated for simplicity and self-discipline.

Upon reflection, however, the Diogenes Challenge seemed like a little too much, even for an arch-minimalist like me.  I quietly let it slide and focused on other things.

Until one day my friend Kal Ghosh asked, when were we going to do it?

Will the Real Cynic Please Stand Up?

In a New Yorker article last fall, Kathryn Schultz attacked the legacy of Henry David Thoreau, calling Walden’s author “pond scum” and dismissing as unrealistic any political vision built upon his “rugged individualism.”  Based on her reaction to Thoreau, she’d likely recoil in horror from Diogenes of Sinope (412-323 BCE), founder of the Cynic school of philosophy in ancient Greece.  Known as “The Dog,” Diogenes lived in a tub, begged for food, and went barefoot, haranguing rich and poor alike for their pointless conformity, irrational behavior, and moral bankruptcy.  Compared to Diogenes, Thoreau was pampered and tame.

You might be familiar with the image of a white-haired man carrying a lamp in  daylight, searching for an honest man.  That was Diogenes.

Statue of Diogenes in Sinop, Turkey.  Source:  Wikipedia

Brilliant philosopher, shameless exhibitionist, ragamuffin — take your pick, but before we concede to people like Schultz and dismiss the man, we have to ask the question, why is Diogenes still remembered some twenty-four hundred years after his death?

I recently came across a book by Professor Luis Navia of New York Institute of Technology, Diogenes the Critic:  The War Against the World, which sheds some interesting light on this question.

The Cry of the Anarcho-Primitivists

In short, all good things are wild and free.

— Henry David Thoreau, Excursions

As someone who enjoys running in the mountains, I find myself drawn to Henry David Thoreau’s vision of nature and wildness.   But when you follow in Thoreau’s path, you discover that his admirers include not only outdoors enthusiasts, but also people with more extreme views.  Consider the philosopher and writer John Zerzan, a self-proclaimed anarchist and primitivist, who criticizes industrial mass society as inherently oppressive and warns us that technology is leading humanity into an increasingly alienated existence, at the same time that it threatens to destroy the natural environment.  To be sure, the anarcho-primitivist movement counts few members, but does that mean it’s safe to ignore Zerzan and his warning?

Portrait of John Zerzan by Bata Nesah, Belgrade, 2013

Foodies: Chew on This

This Thanksgiving, if you’re spending time with family and friends, that’s fine, but if you consider yourself an “Epicurean,” that is, someone who places a high value on fine food and drink, unfortunately, I can’t find any philosophical justification for your preferences.

As a fan of the Stoic philosophers of Ancient Greece and Rome, I thought it was only fair to give the other side a fair hearing, and so I set out recently to learn something about Epicurean philosophy, thinking it would be a study in contrast.  After all, the dictionary defines Stoicism as endurance of pain without complaint, while Epicurean signifies devotion to sensual pleasures, especially fine food and drink.  But I discovered, to my surprise, that this is not the real story.

Let’s Put Thoreau in his Proper Place

In a recent post, I compared a weekend spent hiking in the Catskills to Henry David Thoreau’s two-year sojourn at Walden Pond, as both were experiments in natural living and self-sufficiency.

But then my daughter Emeline brought to my attention a recent article entitled “Pond Scum.”  The author, Kathryn Schulz, questions why we still admire the literature of a man who was mean-spirited and a fake.  She summarizes her opinion in no uncertain terms: