Hello. Welcome to Daily(ish) for Wednesday, January 18. It's, currently three degrees out. Feels like three degrees out, which is a nice thing to have happen. It's, today's Wednesday, January 18 and this episode of Daily is brought to by FeedPress.
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Speaker 1:Daily ish is part of good stuff. It's a podcast. It's part of good stuff and, there's from some folks who follow me through the YouTube podcast and support me because of that. I don't directly mention it on the YouTube podcast. It feels a little weird just because of the, it's a volunteer site and everybody there is doing all this stuff volunteer ish time and and writing and social media ing and reporting on YouTube stuff.
Speaker 1:And so yeah. Anyways, but I appreciate the folks who do who are following me and and supporting me via the YouTube site as well. So at youtube.com. This episode, I wanted to just take a moment to, last night we watched Minimalism, a documentary. It's on Netflix.
Speaker 1:It's Byline is a documentary on the important things which examines the many levels of minimalism by looking inside the lives of minimalists from various walks of life, which I take a bit of issue with. I mean, there's some variety, they're very similar walks of life. It was released last year in, May, and, so I thought I'd just do a quick mini review of it, minimal review as it were. It, tracks Don Harris. Dan Harris, think Joshua Becker who are the minimalist.com, their website and as they go on a tour promoting their book that they just released everything that remains.
Speaker 1:So first up, the good. I can, it's very well shot first of all. It looks good, sounds good good music, background tracks, that kind of stuff. It's not definitely not visually boring, to to watch unless you really hate talking head videos. There's a fair amount of talking head stuff with people talking, they're in interesting, you know, minimal spaces.
Speaker 1:Guess there's not a ton of stuff to look at in the background if that isn't your thing. I definitely agree with the idea of minimalism that comes across in the in the film and that our North American culture and media and advertising etcetera does everything it can to push the opposite of that that you need more stuff to be happy etcetera. And I think being intentional about your living space, your home, your office, the clothes you wear, the food you eat, the stuff you have in your yard or garage or whatever is also a great thing and whether you have a garage, if you have a car, all that kind of stuff, and living intentionally about with that kind of stuff is definitely a good thing. There's lots of motivating stats and quotes referenced in the film about our life as consumers and how it isn't a good thing and and definitely if you're hearing those kinds of things for the first time because of this documentary, that's also great. The decluttering and downsizing idea that will I can't help but you know definitely reduce stress in your life and that's also a great message that comes across in the film.
Speaker 1:We've actually been spending the winter making a garage sale box. This looks bigger than just a box, but, garage sale collection around our house for in the summer and, of stuff we don't need to keep and this film definitely helped give us a kick in the right direction to keep that idea going. One of the things I also appreciate is that they talked about how things that you love, whether it's, you know, like in the movie, it's book collection they give an example of or a CD collection maybe or, and then how it's fine in the spirit of minimalism to if it's bringing you real value and joy to your life to keep those. It's not about getting rid of everything and just keeping only one book and one pair of pants and one, pancake. I don't I'm trying to think of some food that you might keep.
Speaker 1:And, and I appreciate that although it was very minimal, there was at least a passing reference to the idea that minimalism can work for families, not just single white dudes. But it wasn't a very long reference, which gets me to some of the not so good and where the film sort of falls flat for me. And, it it feels as though felt as though Harris and Becker are presenting minimalism as if they invented it. And I'm sure or at least I hope anyway if you follow them on Twitter or read their blog, they're not so egotistical to claim first on minimalism. You know, you we watched we noticed while watching it that a lot of the people attending the talks on the book tour especially, you know, sort of the first half of it were older likely folks from the, you know, sixties, seventies who experienced that wave of discarding material possessions the first go around or second or third go around depending on the history of minimalism, and and we're curious probably to see how these young punk kids were gonna present that idea in 2016.
Speaker 1:It also had a lot of blogger web celebrities, you know, folks talking about how great it was to be living minimalist or how bad society is for not being minimalist without really going into any specific details of what you could actually do to live more minimally. And that's where it felt like ironically the film was a little too minimal in a way. It was it was longer, like it was an hour and I forget how long, hour and bit. But by the end, it didn't feel like there was a lot of meat to what was going on. It was kind of one of like, you know, TED talk expanded where it's just a lot of like motivational ideas about something but very little practical.
Speaker 1:Like a travel blogger who gave up his corporate gig to travel with one suitcase around the world. But obviously, like in his case, if his travel blog wasn't successful enough and photography or whatever exactly however he makes money through ads or financial support, you he's not gonna be doing a lot of traveling around the world and wouldn't be asked to be in this minimalist documentary even if, he was enjoying his minimal lifestyle, traveling, you know, by train or whatever bus or whatever he was able to afford if his blog wasn't doing well. And kind of in general, I'm always wary of people who make their living telling people how to live like they do, like they don't have outside income. Their job their their living is and their money they generate is based on telling you that their lifestyle is great. And so then it kind of becomes a circular cyclical process of promoting themselves in the thing they do.
Speaker 1:And it's not that you can't do that, but, yeah, it just becomes a little bit hard to follow and track when you're living your life and you have your normal job that you have a boss you go to or whatever and trying to like apply some of that stuff and look to success. You're still just ultimately you're you're finding yourself kind of trying to find happiness in someone else's lifestyle which is kind of what minimalism is saying like don't be like everybody else. Don't try and you know have the same stuff. You don't need to have that stuff or whatever that they have in order to be happy and successful in life. Think more intentionally, but also do what I do and buy my books because that's how you're gonna find that success.
Speaker 1:So there's a little bit of that self help kind of monetization stuff going on. It doesn't feel over the top I don't think with with these guys but there's a bit of that and it it especially I guess when they're light on specifics and the practical side of it that's where it gets kind of frustrating. Ultimately it has to work for you, for me, for our family we'll cherry pick a bit of the advice and motivation, but we're not gonna be moving our family of five into a tiny house anytime soon. It'd be a fun way to spend a summer one one year, but, I don't think we'll be doing it anytime soon. And, the winters are long and cold and inside a lot.
Speaker 1:And as I said earlier, I'd I'd recommend seeing it if it if the idea of minimalism is new to you or you're struggling with the feeling like media advertising is forcing you to buy and consume more and more and need some just some like good thoughts around how not to fall into that and at least starting you out on that and then maybe follow some other people in the film, their blogs or writings and books and stuff to get a bit more depth and and just borrow from the library instead of having to buy it because that's one way to live minimally with books for example. And ultimately I think trying to live more intentionally rather than reactionary is my takeaway which is something I've been pushing myself on lately and definitely continue to struggle with you know just planning out your day, planning out your week, thinking about what you need to get done and not just reacting to the email inbox and that kind of stuff or calls that come in or text or whatever but actually having intentionality with your schedule of your day, blocking out time and being able to say no to stuff because you have it planned instead of just sort of saying yes to everything, which is my people pleaser side.
Speaker 1:Alright. That's probably not a very minimal review, but, what did you think if you saw it? Hit me up in the, in the tweets if you want. I Chris on Twitter. You can email me [email protected] and, I'd be curious to hear your reaction, your thoughts, your comments if you've seen it or if you see it as a result of me mentioning it.
Speaker 1:It's on Netflix and Amazon and iTunes and all sorts of places, so you can I'm sure you can find it wherever you happen to be. And it's a good one to throw on if you're folding laundry or whatever you happen to be doing and watch. So thanks for listening. As always, out FeedPress, feed.press/dailyish, and, my Patreon campaign, patreon.com/ichris. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1:Have a great day. Bye.