“Purveyors of modern minimalism do not care whether people tidy their homes and take a few boxes of ugly junk to charity stores, for minimalism is concerned with persuading people to buy new things, particularly expensive, monochromatic things from Sweden which embody the correct aesthetic. Within the minimalist marketing scheme, owning less is always a coy way of justifying one or two more large purchases. If a woman gives ten J.Crew sweaters to Goodwill, she can reward herself with the purchase of a nine-hundred-dollar Jil Sander sweater which "will never go out of style." However, the same people who shell out for items in a fashionable, minimalist aesthetic tire of them soon after the wind changes and the purveyors of cool announce, "Bright colors are back in." Owning less is a fool's errand if it is built on an unsustainable philosophy. There is no shortcut to wanting less—you can't purchase just the right items and then find that you don't want anything more. Wanting less is a virtue which can only be acquired through self-effacing gratitude for the com-mon, modest place in the world wherein fate has decreed that a man should live.”
~Love What Lasts