the holiday stretch aftermath

I often pride myself on a degree of minimalism. That minimalistic philosophy is derivative from many aspects of life over the years, but became deeply engrained at the early years of living this life aquatic, when it was fairly common to pack up two boxes of gear and a small backpack of personal items and be headed to some remote part of the world for several months. When returning stateside, I’d settle in to a small studio apartment, with hardly more than a futon and some floor pillows to sit on while eating dinner at the coffee table. Life was simple.

While life tends to get more complex with age, the inherent philosophy of minimalism has remained at the center of my core values in just about everything. To this day, I can rather easily pick up with those same two boxes of gear, and backpack of clothes and be headed thousands of miles away from home for several weeks to carry out a very substantial exploration diving mission. Somewhat ironically, it takes more equipment to pack up my two little ones for a stroll around the block in the middle of winter – somewhere along the line middle-class suburbia took over a big part of my practical day to day. Surely, I would not trade my current place for anything, though I have been forced to look at the bigger [global] picture as it applies to minimalism, and ultimately human sustainability, in a way that at this point has led to more questions than answers.

The following image is the ‘holiday stretch aftermath’ for just one week of holiday events and various musings at our place – perhaps a typical middle class suburban family of four: