Notes: The merge not taken.
The funny thing about all those minimalism blogs/vlogs, books, motivational speeches, promotional franchises, philosophical frameworks, and cultural trends is that they're always seemingly rooted in the same origin story.
"I was so caught up in the rat race, until…"
The thing that gets me every time with that is that they're all the telltale signs of the zeal of religious discovery, like when people discover yoga, The Secret™, gluten-free diets, magical exercise plans, and so on and so on and so on. It's just so…expected, and so is the cycle—someone goes low carb and my goodness you have to hear about endlessly, and they glowingly brag on it like a newly-minted Hare Krishna or freshly-saved Jesus enthusiast who stares at you with dewy doe eyes and has to tell you over and over how they've never known such love/been so alive/known so much peace and…but I digress.
When I used to be a regular motorcyclist, there was a particular exit ramp, leading out of my town, that I always hated. Going from Rte. 216 to I-95 north, you'd approach on this long sweeping ramp with a sudden bend at the end, so you'd essentially watch traffic pounding by in a gut-clenching moment of OH GOD I HAVE TO MERGE INTO THIS. It was a trick of the light, fortunately, in that the actual merge lane was fairly long, and even a "beginner" motorcycle was more than fast enough to get you up to speed to settle into the scrum, but I found I'd usually take other routes because I disliked the sensation I got from that view every time, looking into that mess like looking into the churning vortex of a blender.
The thing is, when I read or watch aspirational pitches for minimalism, I'm still struck by how often they're locked into a mode of "I tried to keep up, but escaped into minimalism and now I'm happier," which catches my interest because I looked into the rat race when I was a freshly minted adult with a life to work out, and no part of it looked good to me. The signs and wonders of success, the accessories of achievement, and the other trappings of entrapment just seemed so…paltry. Perhaps they weren't, but I didn't much care. It was all just so much television, all hairsprayed 1980s coif and little labels attached to fancy clothes that announced one's arrival as one stepped out of an absurdly priced (and yet unreliable) car to stride into the hot new place where all the particular people congregated, and it had a little vibe of excitement that dissipated as fast as steam from a sidewalk grate, leaving nothing behind.
Instead, I lived on what little I could scrape together on a couple unpleasant jobs, but I didn't aspire to palatial living or accomplishment through ownership of all the right things that everybody dreamed of. I didn't have the cash to travel to Europe and elsewhere and check off all the obligatory snapshots, all the "here I am with the Mona Lisa" and "here I am on the Great Wall of China" and "here I am dining with the elite," and instead, I learned.
I learned to travel without moving, to take on the curiosity of a tourist in my own environment, where the ordinary peeled away to reveal the extraordinary, and to hit yard sales, thrift stores, and library sales carts with gusto, picking out items that were cheap, but special, lucking out in finding friends even more accomplished at that pursuit than I thought I was. I relished things like the perfect fried egg sandwich, made the way my Georgia grandmother made them in her mastery of just two recipes, and renting the perfect movie and watching it over and over again, so I could look deep into it and see how it worked, and how it pulled at my senses and sinews.
A good walk was a joy, or an aimless bike ride on a big clunky bike I'd bought new from a local bike shop that was shutting down, so I got a great price. Adventure was everywhere, and for distant explorations, I had a library card.
I read these pieces on becoming minimalist, and so much is framed by the life these ardent minimalists rejected and how noble their rejection was that I can't help but think back on how I don't understand why they ever joined the "rat race," like what it was about that kind of glossy, showy, lifeless life presented in lurid television color and in the fancier magazines that ever appealed to them in the first place. I was lucky, really, to have started out a little above my station, thanks to my father's successful business, but even his modest concessions to accomplishment were so minor, and served, in a way, as a model for me.
Buy yourself a little something that's pretty and special so you don't feel like you're drowning in austerity, and let that be enough to make you happy. I saved up a bit and bought myself a used Danish stereo that looked like something from 1970s science fiction instead of something plasticky and cheap from Panasonic, and it sat in pride of place in my front room for thirty-some years as an amusing counterpoint to the little faux woodgrain 9" General Electric TV set that sat in the corner as a potent statement on how much TV mattered (I eventually upgraded to a 13" set). My furniture was hand-me-down, thrift-shopped, or assembled from IKEA kits after grueling drives to the far-off IKEA (and later the nicely nearby branch), and my artwork was either family work, or yard sale finds, or pieces I made myself.
I picked my jobs according to ease of the commute, or let them pick me. There's a relief in not feeling like you need to forever chase a buck and the symbols of success, and the people who'd look at my life as a small and shabby thing had small and shabby hearts and dreams already predreamed for them by some corporate middlemen looking for new markets. Who did I need to impress other than myself? Besides, I couldn't really impress anyone I cared about with expensive objects as well as I could with fabulous finds and honest discoveries, whether material or philosophical.
I lived in second-hand comfort and first-hand adventure, and the rat racers never get that until they break down and suddenly become zealot converts, bragging on what they lay claim to after chasing the wrong thing for nearly lifetimes, like a racing greyhound running after a robot rabbit on a track. I wish them well, even if I have to roll my eyes a little bit about their gibbering hyperearnest evangelism for something that was natural to me because I looked ahead at that thundering interstate at the exit ramp and stayed left rather than making the merge, and puttered on by to nearer pleasures or took the long way through.
Living simply after life in the rat race? That's nice for you.
Now you just need to master the perfect fried egg sandwich. It's harder than you think, but it's worth the effort.
©2025 Joe Belknap Wall
