Our reading for today: "I’ve increasingly been relying more on intuition and less on reason" which you can see here. Further on we learn, "We simply won’t have time to think everything through, and taking that time might not be the best use of ours anyway."
That's right people. Don't think too hard. In fact, not thinking too hard is kind of a requirement for intellectual minimalism. You need to "clear the surface" of your mind. Critical thought, grammar, they're just yokes of the modern world. We don't need more ideas, we've got feelings and Truthiness (and part time jobs). When we free our minds, we free ourselves from the negative voice inside us that says "What the fuck is wrong with you!?" and "This is fucking idiotic. Get your head out of your ass" and so on. Because I have truly dedicated my life to this ideology I have decided to shed all but 10 of my most essential ideas. Here they are:
Use the wi-fi at Panera Bread
Buy v-neck shirts
Wear v-neck shirts
Blog your way to the top
Enjoy a cup of oolong tea while brushing your hair every day
iPhone
Ride a bike, or if not, just ride in a car that someone else pays to maintain
Books are like spider webs for your inner mind; don't kill a tree, plant a book
I've wondered lately if the contributors to this blog and its (admittedly few) readers are the only people who are willing to stand up against the douche kingdom of Everett Bogue and his cult of minimalists. So today, I did some Googlin', and though it took a lot of wading through pro-Bogue malarkey, I found that we are not alone. In fact, even some people calling themselves minimalists (or something like it) think Bogue is a douche. These people are from the saner faction of minimalists, ones who know how to count, or better yet, ones who don't give a shit about the number of their possessions. Their blogs would almost certainly make Ev cry, as any form of criticism does.
I hope we can all agree that some minimalists - especially those who resist the term "minimalists" - are level-headed people with their hearts in the right place. They recognize the stupidity of owning every single goddamn thing one can possibly own, and they seem to be intelligent enough to realize that Bogue is a hypocrite and a pretentious douche. They advocate for living simply rather than pretending that 100 is the absolute largest number of possessions a person should even think about owning. I hope you click a few of the following links and see that some minimalists and bike snobs are actually sort of reasonable.
Sorry this post wasn't very snarky; 'tis the fucking season and all. These bloggers just kind of make me happy. If even minimalists and semi-minimalists are on our side regarding Everett Bogue, there may be hope for humanity after all.
He probably only had a couple cell phones. Not like all these "consumers" who eat at "McDonald's"...pigs. I consider him a great inspiration to me, and I'm sure that since he was reincarnated as someone else, I'm a great inspiration to him, too.
An African child.
Look at how much this child has been able to shed from his or her (hard to tell) lifestyle. Not tied down by cell phones and jobs and computers. Well done children. I can see that you've seen minimalism on TV and decided to buy into it.
The Rapanui (from the Easter Islands)
These guys were so minimalistical that they pretty much don't exist anymore. Cross "functional society" off your "list of things you own" list.
So it's not that hard, people. You just need to look to people like these who intentionally get rid of material possessions. Go buy a book about it.
Today we have some tips on how to count. If you're a minimalist (and if you define your life by what you don't have or what you don't do instead of by the things that you care about and the things that you're fortunate to have, you are) you probably have a hard time counting, like this douche. So while you're obsessing over your personal belongings (even though you claim not to be interested in them) here are some tips to make you feel better about your life. Tip 1) don't count things that you don't really feel like counting, like cords. As we all know from reading Far Beyond my Douche Chill, cords are annoying. So they don't count. Also it's not really a possession, sort of like how furniture, appliances, books, silverware, plates and other eating implements, beds, bedding, underwear, toiletries, and probably make up don't count as possessions. I mean, GOD, we're trying to live a life that's free of the things I just listed there. How are we supposed to feel good about ourselves if we count them as possessions!!? Tip 2) when you do count things, make sure they are desperate items that consumers buy in order to make themselves feel a certain way. In this case: white and over-privileged.
Look at some of the things on this fucking list:
Frye Boots (do they make those for men?) Blue V-Neck Grey V-Neck Grey V-Neck Grey T-Shirt Black V-Neck 1 TB Harddrive 500 GB Harddrive Macbook Pro 13inch Canon Digital Rebel XTI 16-35mm 2.8L Lens 50mm Lens Off-camera Flash Headphones iPhone Moleskin
Could this prick be any more bougie? He's literally got more clothing and tech-gadgets than I do, and I'm not basing my entire persona around being a minimalist, am I? Fuck no.
We are often told that the poor are grateful for charity. Some of them are, no doubt, but the best amongst the poor are never grateful. They are ungrateful, discontented, disobedient, and rebellious. They are quite right to be so.
-Oscar Wilde
From Ev Bogue's latest blog (blogue?) post:
Basically, investing in women in the 3rd world is been proven to make lasting change. When you give money to men in Africa (or anywhere) they tend to spend it on booze and motorcycles (I know, because I have, and I don’t even live in Africa.) Women tend to build businesses and support their families.
I guess Ev can count racism as one of his possessions!
Bogue knows African men blow charity money on motorcycles and alcohol because rather than citing empirical evidence he can say with certainty that he has blown cash on motorcycles and alcohol - ERGO, THAT'S WHAT AFRICAN MEN DO! Not women, though, of course, because women don't like to have fun. They like to stay in their place, raising families and being grateful for charity from rich white douches.
What the damn hell, world. How can we keep letting Bogue get away with saying shit like this?
I can't wait until California falls into the ocean.
Even if African men blow their charity donations on booze and motorcycles, so the FUCK what? They don't have SHIT. Their lives fucking BLOW. I may be alone in this sentiment, but I feel that if you give your extra money to a Third World country, you kind of have to assume not every penny of it is going to be used for basic life necessities like clean water and nutritious food and minimalist-approved purple tank tops. Ever heard of Maslow's hierarchy of needs? Once your basic biological functions are taken care of, you move up to the second tier. "Property" can be found there. These people have so little property, they are BEYOND minimalist. And I, for one, believe they deserve a little balls-out fun and recklessness and pleasure in life.
Remember how during Hurricane Katrina, survivors sat on their rooftops, drinking beer, watching the flood swallow their city? They'd been through hell and they knew nothing would ever be the same. I'd say that's a damn fine time to crack open a beer. I'm sure if they'd had the opportunity, they'd tear down the street on a motorcycle. Hell, I would, and I'm WHITE and FEMALE. I just happen to believe that once your responsibilities are taken care of, you don't necessarily want to plan for the future. You want to blow off some steam. In Third World countries, there's a lot of steam to blow off. And I say go for it.
Recently Everett Bogue posted a blog called HOW TO CREATE AN A-LIST MINIMALIST BLOG IN LESS THAN 6-MONTHS, a title which I could spend at least a few paragraphs picking apart. I have no idea how caps lock is supposed to emphasize how FUCKING MINIMALIST THIS SHIT IS or why he hyphenated "6-months". It makes so little sense I could puke. Which would be awesome, because then I wouldn't have to count the contents of my stomach as a possession.
Bogue goes on to name the nine key elements of any successful minimalist blog. Not just any blog, mind you, but a minimalist blog. Most other types of blogs are irrelevant. Except this one.
Here are Bogue's key points, plus my delightfully snarky take on them:
1. Live the change you want to make in the world.
Holy shit, Ev, that was my senior yearbook quote! But wait.. it sounds a little different. Do you mean "Be the change you wish to see in the world"? Because Gandhi said that shit. I think you just tried to one-up fucking Gandhi in quote form. Shit, Gandhi! Now there's a minimalist! Dude didn't even eat, and he got shit DONE. Namaste, bitch!
He continues: How do you live a minimalist life? Well, I went over that in a book I wrote. If you’re still stumped, rent a dumpster and throw all of your stuff in it. Take your car to the center of town and light it on fire (but don’t tell them I told you to do it.) Living with less than 50 things is a good benchmark for most people these days, if you’re into counting your stuff.
I’m sorry, but you just can’t have a raging minimalist fan following if you’re living like a normal person. It just doesn’t work that way.
Terrorist acts give me a raging minimalist boner fan following. Bogue not only urges us to burn our cars (confusingly, he wants us to do this in heavily populated areas, which kind of reinforces the point I brought up in my last post: he's fucking culty) but also completely fails to realize that he's living like a normal person. Time and time again he pretends that he's just barely getting by with the fewest possessions a human could possibly need, but he blithely writes about the whole thing on his laptop, or maybe his iPhone. He has more higher-end electronics than I do, and I'm a "normal" person.
This is some Bogue's best writing. Observe: Humans weren’t designed to sit at desks until their lumbar spine fuses irreversibly to their inner thighs. Humans weren’t meant to eat meal worms (my codename for any product made out of processed corn) for breakfast. Humans weren’t meant to drive around in solitary stupid people pods. Humans weren’t meant to be popping pills every morning in a desperate attempt to find artificial happiness. Humans weren’t meant to wander around fluorescently lit shopping malls being told what to buy by huge corporations.
I wonder at which co-op he purchased his sustainably-farmed iPhone. Does Apple no longer count as a huge corporation, just 'cause they make stuff that appeals to trust-fund hippies?
I won't even comment on the "meal worms" term or the biological impossibility of lumbar spines fusing to inner thighs. This shit makes me tired. I hope Bogue is one of those people who are rabidly opposed to vaccines. I hope he steps on a rusty nail and gets the flu and smallpox and cervical cancer all at once.
3. Challenge and prepare to be challenged.
He's challenged, all right. Hurrrr.
4. Be a human.
FUCK!
I'd just like to note, he closes this section with, "No one cares about your creative use of photoshop, what we care about is seeing your beautiful eyes." Is it possible to be molested via open letter? Because I feel violated on behalf of mankind.
5. Link link link link, link one more time.
When bloggers see you linking to them in every single post, they want to buy you dinner and a million beers, because they start to see traffic coming from your site.
That's our goal, Everett: to link to you in every. single. post. You will buy us one million beers, and you will be discredited until you are forgotten.
6. Establish an all star inner circle.
This is the section of the blog where Bogue starts whining about how like-minded asshats are always approaching him to promote their blogs. He adopts a Mafia-esque stance, saying, [W]hy would I want to link to you? Have you done anything for me? Why would I want to pimp out my audience for your blog if you’ve never done anything for me?
I thought this shit was all about being nice and kind and universal and not at all a douche chill. Oh wait.
7. Make this inner circle out of similarly sized blogs.
This is such a boring point it doesn't even need to exist. So I'll just keep my commentary to a simple FUCK YOU.
8. Don't apologize for being awesome.
You’re writing a blog, that’s an amazing thing. You’re doing way better than the other billions of people who aren’t writing a blog. Don’t apologize for being awesome, instead keep creating awesome stuff.
Thanks! I will!
9. Support yourself by supporting others.
Which directly contradicts the point he made in #6, where he railed against people who asked for his support. Keep on truckin', fuckface.
10. Bonus rule! Keep working towards your destination.
In other words, don't stop:
a) believin' and b) thinkin' about tomorrow.
It's all been said before. Without pretense. And with awesome power chords and/or a danceable beat, however unlistenable it might be.
I'd like to close with just a little bit more copyright infringement by posting a song that always lifts me up when I'm down, when I remember that my F-list blog that rides the coattails of an A-list blog has four followers and has not yet spawned a self-help ebook or a line of stick-free cookware. Sometimes I just have to remember to... TRUST MYSELF.
Check out this creepy-ass culty shit written by Everett Bogue (or Grimey Ev, as he likes to be called):
In the near future…
We will end poverty (both the 5-bedroom 2-car TV-enslavement in the 1st world and the we-can’t-eat in the 3rd)
Will will destroy the corporations that led us to this place of advertising enslavement.
We will recognize that we’re in this together. We brought us to this place, and we will take us to the future.
We will find freedom and also harmony for all. Across all borders, ideals, and end all conflicts.
This is why minimalism is blowing up right now, because it is the truth, because it brings about freedom for all.
This has been tried before, but before we didn’t have the tools without boundaries.
They can’t stop us now.
Are you alive? Prove it.
Minimalism is the truth. It brings about freedom for all. DO YOU LOVE FREEDOM? Then buy Everett Bogue's book, Minimalist Business, for just $37 (note: price is about to go up because Our Leader is adding more content)! It's the only way to get freedom, and freedom (like socks) doesn't really count as a possession!
In the same post, Bogue also says:
The Internet killed the Gatekeepers and made it possible to connect with anyone anywhere in the world.
If you're all about "ending poverty," Ev, then maybe you should realize that impoverished people (of the "we-can't-eat" sort that you so eloquently described) do not have access to the fucking internet. The Gatekeepers are blocking them! Same goes for China, where you can't even access Youtube to watch awesome Minimalist videos. It's all Gatekeepers. Fucking Gatekeepers! Our Minimalist cult must rise up against them and give humanity one of its 57 most basic needs: full, unrestricted internet access. If it's good enough for Bogue-y, it's good enough for the Third World.
He goes on to say...
So, for the first time in the history of the human race, the people who actually get it — the ones who are awake,– are able to organize themselves to save the future of the human race.
Ideas don’t come from the individual, they come from the formation of a collective. I’m just funneling the ideas of my collective whole, and you are to pass them on.
This guy has the ego of a cult leader. I, for one, welcome our Minimalist overlord, if only because once he assumes the throne he so clearly desires, he could reasonably count each and every human being as a possession. That, my friends, is around 7 billion possessions. This paradox - an ordained Minimalist having more than 100 possessions! - would probably bring about the apocalypse. Good riddance.
Oh TV. I love TV. And I love having my basic choices applauded on TV. So pop a squat on your velour, sectional sofa (1 item), microwave some popcorn, fire up the TV with your remote (batteries included, that's only 1 item, too!), and watch Everett Bogue on TV.
Or, if you're like, at a coffee shop using their bathroom, and table, and silverware, and expensive food-preparation equipment (because you don't have any at home) simply plug your laptop and/or internet capable cell phone into the power grid and watch it there!
Seem contradictory? It's not. At all. Simply buy my book to find out why not!
There are, of course, three different levels of minimalism and the maximum amount of self-congratulation that can come from such. So don't skimp, you're gonna want to buy the most expensive version,
I mean look at this guy: It's hilarious! What if Derek Zoolander started a blog about minimalism, right? Minimalists usually spend a lot of time posing in front of the ocean for Glamour Shots. The ocean is so minimalistical. So what if your photographer friend from San Francisco uses all his or her complicated lighting/photography equipment to get a glamour shot of you? You need it for your computer that you use to manage a website about promoting a lifestyle that's inherently stripped down to its basic necessities (like blogging).
