Luxury and simplicity are starkly contrasting lifestyle foundations, albeit some try to combine them.
Simplicity, depending on how to define it, might be a positive or a negative notion, while luxury, at least until recently, has brought out mostly positive associations.
A luxury's distinguishing marks are: limited supply, not being a part of everyday life, or being enjoyed by few chosen (elites). Whatever is experienced frequently, or by masses does not deserve to be called a luxury. For some reasons, luxury is what many people strive for. How they pursue it, depends on their social status.
The poor flaunt material goods, especially those eye-popping, the rich benefit from their wealth in silence. The poor buy small, visible stuff (electronics, clothes, footwear, used cars of premium makes), some of the rich take delight in comfort of life and not proving their wealth to anyone. The poor consume to show off, the rich accumulate, building a cushion for rainy days.
Shunning thoughtless consumption requires guts and strong will. It involves rising above pressure of consumption which surrounds us from all angles. Doing so requires self-confidence and self-esteem rooted in who you are, not what you possess.
The book praises DIY as a virtue, drawing on traditions of craftsmanship and resourcefulness. Doing (not only constructing, more often repairing) things on one's own best symbolises sprawczość (a concept best represented by English words such as: agency, self-efficacy, empowerment, though none of them fully grasps the purport).
The biggest trap of minimalism is not getting obsessed with self-discipline essential to cut down on lavish spending, but disdain towards those who have not taken the same path. Whenever I look down on drivers of oversized SUVs I catch myself having fallen into that trap. The author of the book, Mr Jakub Szczęsny has apparently also not resisted it. Besides, if minimalism becomes an ideology governing your life, you can go over the top with it and plunge into another extreme, making the life of your near and dear a misery.
The book is a manifesto of simple, yet comfortable and slow life. As the author points out, humans can draw happiness from giving up on chasing consumption. Life gets easier when pressure is released, yet I believe in order to reach that stage, one must attain a level of affluence sufficient not to worry about basic material needs and unpredictable situations in which financial resources would be a lifeboat. My post oddly coincides with a fellow blogger's musings, which overlap the notion of what a comfortable life is.
I usually recommend books I review here, but not this one. I see most things eye to eye with the author, but his scribble is tough to read, too lengthy, some chapters are a string of complaints and between the lines self-superiority comes up. Even though the ending makes up for mediocre middle chapters, my overall advice is to read it at your own risk.
