Borderline Minimalism
"I can't believe a lot of people want to buy books."
And then I said, "Why not?"
"You can see there's a lot of pdfs available online and like you, you still prefer to buy physical ones." said the Fb shop owner.
I thought for a moment and I assume that partly, this woman, knows minimalism. I've known the term minimalism until I know the phrase "paradox of choice" and the word "downsizing", but it never crosses my mind there's a millennial term for that.
I want to explain to her that there are several reasons as to why people prefer physical books over digital ones.
- Some people love the smell of it, the rough, edgy touch and rustic sound of the paper when you flip a page.
- Loves to be distracted by flipping a page
- health problems i.e. Can't stay staring at the screen for too long.
- and so on and so forth.
But as for me, this is one of the hobbies I have where I don't get to look at the screens. Pretty much everything I have can be done through my smartphone. It's the most powerful machine if used properly. In fact, I can have thousands of books in my library if I want to.
Then I realized, I don't have a lot of activities that don't involve screens. From communicating down to calculating numbers, I heavily rely on my readily accessible gadgets. We used to do all these basic things without the need for gadgets, but now it seems like we're pretty much chained to it.
I use my iPad to draw
I use my phone to read news
I use my computer to write
I use my iPad to learn a language
What else in your life can be done without a smartphone?
That's why I set some boundaries and select which of these activities that I have can be done without a digital.
Although it's easy to say that we can always go back to the ways we used to do.
Go buy some magazines to read news.
Go buy a vintage camera to take pictures.
Don't subscribe to spotify, get a music player and download all the songs you like
Sure, it can be done, but if you think about it, having too much of something can be tiring, thus adding clutter, thus failing to use them over time. If you think about it, your gadgets can do these things. In just one tap, bam! Spotify. Bam! Apple TV. Easy. Fast.
That's why a lot of people fail in practice.
We can go back to the non-digital ways that we used to but in this fast-paced, technology-advanced, practical world, it's ok to embrace the usage of these digital. Unless you have tons of dedication like Cal Newport, then you can do it. But as an average, normal, can't even dedicate to doing a simple exercise in the morning, it's as hard as getting out of bed at 5am in the morning to be a successful person.
I say, create a borderline. Know your borders. As simple as collecting books. I don't know what your preferences are, but here's mine.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to buy some books.