A Little About Myself

The prospect of an inaugural blog post is an intimidating thing, at least in my imagination, where people are actually reading this. God knows I've written enough of them over the years, in all of the blogs I've started and killed a few months later for various reasons, usually relating to my dissatisfaction with my image of the blog vs. results. So I vow to not do that ever again. This one is here to stay.

I guess that's thing #1 about myself - I'm a hopeless perfectionist, and I'd rather not do anything if I can't get it absolutely right. I suppose that's one motivation behind my minimalism (more about that in the next post) -- by paring everything down to just the essentials, I'm freed from obsessing over unnecessary details.

Second, I suppose some context about where I am in life would make this blog make more sense. In terms of biographical details, I'm hoping to keep this as anonymous as possible, but I'll reveal this much: I'm female, American, in my late 20's, living in a large city, and recently engaged to a decidedly non-minimalist guy. The incongruence between his "collector" tendencies and my downsizing are the biggest source of conflict in our relationship. I'm also in the throes of law school applications, which are currently the focus of my anxiety, though I seem to always find something to worry about, even when everything is going fine.

That leads into the third thing: I'm anxious, perhaps pathologically so, although I've never sought any kind of counseling or other treatment. I've recently become intrigued by Buddhist philosophy precisely because of its attitudes toward worry and suffering. This is definitely a theme I want to explore more, especially in the context of minimalism and removing distractions from one's life.

I also care deeply about the earth and its future. I've been vegetarian since age ten, and occasionally vegan. I'm looking to make this a permanent change, and I plan to explore this in my blog as well. In addition, I am very conscientious about reducing my waste, minimizing carbon emissions and not taking up more than my share of anything, all of which I think coincide nicely with a simpler lifestyle.

I'm sure I'll think of more relevant details to discuss later. My next post will go into detail about why I chose this title, and how it reflects further on who I am and where I've been.