We’ve heard a lot about “minimalism” and “micro-living” recently, with folks ditching their clutter and moving into space-efficient micro-homes. But have these privileged residents of airy tiny castles ever visited the real world? Have they seen real people? You know, those of us who aren’t living some bohemian fantasy, but in fact have actual hoarding to do?
These Henry David No-Store-Os advocate a “capsule wardrobe,” owning just a few high-quality clothes and discarding the rest. How out-of-touch do you have to be, to assume that everyone can just “discard” two bathtubs’ worth of oversized t-shirts they got at a bulk discount and might wear or sell someday?
And where exactly do you think the money for this capsule wardrobe is coming from? The average working American can’t afford those overpriced rags (oh, let me guess – we should all get rid of our rag collections, too?!) unless we save extra money using the stacks and stacks of coupons accumulating dust in our fuse boxes. But minimalism would have us toss those as well!
Maybe up to $600 in savings is peanuts to Bob and Betty Rockefeller in their tiny converted storage unit, but it makes a big difference to those of us who live in the real America, in the year 2014, in a level of squalor that’s deeply alarming to everyone who can afford not to live like this.
As for your tiny homes? Some bourgeois family with just one child might thrive there. But a working-class, single mother of around 200 precious baby cats has to consider what’s best for them. Which means: space to roam, plenty of cabinets to shit in, room to scatter 32 pounds of kibble daily, and plenty of roasting pans to shit in. It’s not so “simple” to provide that in only 450 square feet of space!
For those of us who weren’t born with a minimalistic silver spoon rack to hold our one all-purpose spoon, “micro-living” is just one more pie-in-the-sky playground for the rich. I’ll stick to the crate of expired but still edible Entenmann’s pies in my cellar, thanks.
