MINIMALISM Buckminster Fuller is one of my favorite thinkers. If I had to name the coolest idea he imparted to me it would surely be the one about ownership, namely, ownership is onerous. It is admittedly an echo of Thoreau's famous admonition to "simplify, simplify, simplify," but I especially liked the way Bucky put it, and the way he elaborated on it. Buckminster Fuller really made it clear to me that anything you own is a burden. Why? Because you are responsible for what you own. It's the reason you have to buy homeowner's insurance. You are responsible for your property. If someone gets hurt on it, they are not responsible; you are. But it goes deeper, much deeper. Consider the little things. If you own a suit, you are responsible for it. You have to see that it's properly taken care of, dry cleaned and so on. Same for shoes and all your clothing. Now, it's true, we have to maintain our clothing, and we most certainly have to have clothes. But do we need so many? And such variety? Well, it's up to you (and your pocketbook of course). Personally, I'm a minimalist, with a great deal of thanks to people like Buckminster Fuller and Henry David Thoreau. There was a time (many years ago) when I would see one of those movie scenes of some rich dude opening his closet and getting seriously involved in selecting the proper suit (which was no minor task, because the huge closet was filled with them), and feel a pang of envy, wishing I could be in such circumstances. Now, it's just the reverse. These days, when I see one of those scenes I almost laugh. I don't even own a suit, not a single one. Personally, I consider them to be downright pretentious. But pretentiousness is not the issue. It's all about the responsibility. I don't want to be responsible for a suit, let alone twenty of them. Ownership is onerous. This applies to cars as well, perhaps especially to cars, without doubt one of the most onerous possessions of the modern world. If I could figure out a way to do without one, I would do it without thinking twice about it. But our pretentious, and disjointed, American way of life makes that possibility virtually remote. When I see a brand new car, I don't get all glassy eyed and my heart doesn't start going pitter patter. Hell no. I see a status symbol (with the emphasis on the word symbol), utterly reeking of responsibility. Insurance. Gas. Oil. Periodic Maintenance. Car Payments! I see the painful responsibility of kissing a boss's ass (and customer's asses) all the time to keep your job so that you can keep on making the payments, and maintaining the incredible burden that such a vehicle surely is. I see a virtual prison sentence. Cars do not give us nearly as much freedom as they take away from us. Personally, I want to be free to tell someone to kiss my ass if I don't like their attitude, instead of having to kiss theirs to keep my job just so I can keep driving a really nice car. People like Buckminster Fuller (and Thoreau) are reminiscent of the prophets in the Old Testament. The masses are wandering around, huddled together in their little assemblies, whether at work or play or church or synagogue, talking to each other, sharing their petty little lies, lies which they live by so intensely that they can't even see them as lies. One of those lies is about ownership, and it's passed around in all sorts of different flavors. I remember one in particular. It said, "He who dies with the most toys wins." But a prophet like Thoreau comes along and says, "Nay, nay. Verily I say unto thee, he who dies with the least toys wins." Actually, what he said was, "Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind." And my personal favorite: "A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone." Amen (or, to put it in more modern parlance, "Fuckin' A!)
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