Disclaimer: This is not an article backed with science. This is me purely sharing my story and how I came to the idea on how minimalism values could lead to possible implementations that could save humanity from climate change crisis.
My journey of this revelation comes from existential crisis. Feeling empty inside, searching for other meaning in life other than eat-work-sleep. Quitting my job also comes to mind, so I can explore more or on the extreme, embark on a journey to find my true purpose in life, maybe through entrepreneurship or being a sociopreneur. In short, I am seeking for happiness.
Image Source: https://unsplash.com/@magnetme
I live in Indonesia, working in a corporate job mostly from home due to my company’s working from home (WFH) policy. Indonesia, if you’re not familiar, is the country where Bali is located. We’re a developing country with tropical climate, where global warming hits quite hard. Our country was already warm to begin with, and global warming and industrialization has turned the country’s urban area into an overpopulated city full of vehicles and polluted air. Therefore, I always have this desire to help tackle this particular problem of over deforestation and climate change.
Online Classes and Circular Economy Business
I always think that living an eco friendly lifestyle alone won’t make the change because, well technically I am only a person living in these 270 million other individuals, how significant would it be? Therefore just like any other fresh graduate looking for new skills in pandemic era, I took online classes. Luckily, my company gives every employee an access to Udemy and certifications. They even allow us to earn some sort of badge, if we are able to complete around 15 hours worth of credits.
The classes and article I read was insightful. Mostly talking about green business and circular economy. Therefore I started brainstorming myself about simple ideas such as a recycling business, trash sorting business, secondhand market business, and many more. After some research, I found out that those business model are actually already exist in Indonesia. However, how come I never heard most of them? Then I realize, it maybe hard for them to expand or even market their product, because there are no incentive or even pressure for us consumers, to reach them.
For example secondhand market product. Secondhand market is quite successful in developed country such as Australia with high cost of living. Basically everything in Australia is more expensive than in Indonesia, it’s usually around 2-10 times more expensive. When I was there to pursue my bachelor degree, I bought most of my household things from secondhand market, such as kitchen utensils and electronics, chair, tables, cleaning tools, and even clothes.
But it’s different in Indonesia. The awareness of waste management is very low, and usually new products are quite affordable, and I rarely sell unused things. Usually either my parents and I throw it out to the landfill, give it to somebody, or donate. This makes secondhand market don’t have values in Indonesia. We don’t care about our waste and everything is just cheap and waste is not regulated. Not to mention the severe corruption within the government which often has the wrong focus on problem solving. If you want to know how severe is waste problem in Indonesia, we actually have flood every rainy season. This is due to many of our people throw their garbage to the drain so it clogs. Therefore, giving up on my job to do business may actually do nothing (or it may do). Not to mention starting a business will require large sum of money.
Image Source: https://bali.tribunnews.com/2020/01/03/awal-2020-inilah-daftar-wilayah-di-indonesia-yang-terendam-banjir
Minimalism
One day, I remember seeing an instagram story of my friend, recommending the movie “Minimalism” on netflix. Having nothing to do on Friday night, I watched that movie, but the second shorter one, called “The Minimalist: Less is Now”. And my reaction was like, “Oh okay, yeah consumerism kills happiness”. And the next morning, I after finding out they have a longer and older movie called “Minimalism”, I watched it as well, and I suddenly has this enlightenment.
Image Source: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3810760/
For long I have always been nagged and scolded by my mom for not being tidy. And it always left me angry. I don’t even understand why I don’t like tidying up. I just always feel it’s useless since I know where everything is, and sometimes I just found better things to do. And more importantly, I don’t understand why a bedroom must meet my mom’s standard of tidiness, when I am the one who occupied that room everyday? But after I watched “Minimalism”, i got a theory. What if I’m not actually tidy, but I just have too many stuffs?
So according to Minimalism, by only keeping the things that adds value to your life, your life will be more meaningful and happier. This makes sense, like for example by only having 30 clothes instead of 100+ clothes, you will hold on to your clothes more dearly, and also will make your life so much more efficient as you have less choices. Your room will also look more spacey. Think of it like this. Why do you think a sleeping in the hotel is so much more comfortable and relaxing compared to your own home? It’s not only because your hotel room may have beautiful scenery, but also they are empty furniture, which in turns make it look neat and more comfortable. So more empty room = more comfortable room = happy occupants.
Minimalism not only teach us to declutter. They also tell us to buy less junk product. Don’t just buy a product because it’s cool. Don’t buy a product because its advertisement told you you are less valuable if you don’t buy this product. Be it the latest smartphone, fashion trend, skincare. So as I conclude, the first step of adopting minimalism is to declutter. The next step is to stop spending too much on things that don’t add value, or impulsive buying. Because as it turns our, owning lots of stuffs doesn’t guarantee happiness.
Although I already did decluttering my possessions around a year ago when I just came back from my studies in Melbourne, turns out I still have lots of stuffs. So I did the decluttering again. The during the decluttering, suddenly I remembered about a youtube video.
No Poo
Just a few days before I found out about minimalism, I watched this youtube video by Johnny Harris, titled “Shampoo is a Lie (for me…and maybe for you too??)” . I used to watch him on Vox Borders but since it got cancelled and he left (or is he kicked?) Vox, he’s been making his own youtube videos. Okay back to that video, Johnny is telling a story about his experience about how not shampooing actually does better to his hair. This is because shampoo is basically stripping out all the natural oil produced by our body, making our scalp super dry. And to compensate, our body is producing even more oil, which makes our hair look greasy, and the solution offered by the big corporations is to wash it again with shampoo.
Image Source: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=johnny+harris+shampoo
While he keeps reminding his viewers that he’s not trying to persuade anybody about not using shampoo, he wants us to be skeptical about whether big corporations has controlled our life and psychological through advertisement. Telling us that not using shampoo is horrible. And honestly, I do relate, because I have a friend that used to tell me he only use shampoo once a week, and always thinking that’s really gross.
I always think myself as not really having much problem on my hair and my body skin. My hair is straight and silky. My body skin is also okay. My problems are on face skin because I do have a lot of acne. However I began to be aware of how my skin is actually showing this over-dry symptom every day, I just somehow found a perfect band-aid for it everyday. During the night, I often felt itchy on my body skin, for example, on my back, on my belly, and I treat this by spreading a moisturizer around that area. During the day, I also often felt my hair was itchy and when I scratch it, I found my finger would be oily and some of my dry scalp is sticking on my nail. And I was okay, since I know it will all be gone once I showered using shampoo. After this realization, I was like “WTH?”
This is like a whole new level of consumerism. We were not only persuaded to buy things we don’t need, they actually try to make us feel inferior by not buying and using their products everyday! And from then, I began planning my No Poo program. I read several blogs and watch several youtube, and I saw there are transition phase before you can actually go 100% no poo. I actually don’t want to go 100% no poo, but my target is to once a week shampoo, and only using organic shampoo without harmful chemicals. But this was for another day.
I concluded that by implementing no poo, not only I will contribute towards saving the environment (imagine the plastic reduced and the chemicals no longer in our groundwater!), but it’s also part of my plan to implement minimalism concept in my life. Therefore I think going no poo is part of reducing unnecessary consumption that doesn’t add value to your life, which is basically minimalism!
How Minimalism Lifestyle Can Tackle Climate Change
Reducing waste of non biodegradable products
Buying only things that are necessary will eliminate the need to throw out unused things. This will consequently leads to less products needed to go to waste. Not to mention many of us are still not used to the idea of separating our waste, nor having the advance technology to recycle the used plastics in the fastest and most efficient way without reducing the quality. So maybe the solution is just to have less waste.
Reducing the carbon emissions
By buying less products, it will indirectly contribute towards less production, packaging, and delivery of products. Same goes with offline shopping, where if you don’t shop that much, you won’t need to drive your car to that department store, which will reduce your carbon footprint. In addition, your donations after decluttering would also make other people not have to buy new products, and the chain goes on.
Increasing the amount of land available for trees
Imagine many people start to be more responsible in their consumption and only buy things they truly need. There will be less factory needed to produce junk products. There will be less brick and mortar store space needed to display and sell the products. And if people don’t have much things in their possession, small house or apartment will be sufficient. So with less factory, less physical marketplace, and less residential area, there will be more space for mother nature to save this planet from global warming and climate change by having more land for trees.
Implementing minimalism practice on your food and hygiene consumption could also save the planet!
Now let’s get back to the definition of minimalism, which is living with only the things you really need. If you implement this to your food as well, meaning that you eat only what you need and what’s good for your health! There are debates on this topic but I believe whole-foods, plant-based diet is the ultimate diet. I’m not here to do a vegan indoctrination cause I myself are not a vegan, but I am fully aware and can’t deny that whole-foods, plant-based diet is indeed the least painful healthy and eco-friendly diet you could implement in this era.
Same thing goes with your hygiene products. What if the no poo is true, that we actually don’t need commercial shampoo and soap to actually be clean? Not to mention having many additional complementary products that does not really add value such as conditioner, cream bath, facemask, and many other products that make our shower time longer, I might not be very neutral on this since I am in the middle of experimenting No Poo practice. However, I think we could all at least try to opt for a more eco-friendly alternative, such as using local organic shampoo and soap. By reducing the complementary products that does not add value to your hygiene, you could also save time!
Me doing these things alone won’t make a big change, but it’s still better than not doing it at all. Me keeping this thought alone won’t make the change, so I shared it here.
Every change you want to make, it should start with you.
Helena Agnes 