Index Fleets About Triangle Feed

▲ of the Mind [006]

Next week will mark the official end of spring and the beginning of summer. In many ways, this transition feels like a faint line in the sand in my home state of Florida. The kids are already out of school since the end of May. The sun didn’t get the message that it should wait to try and cook us like eggs in a cast iron skillet. The one activity that feels rooted in spring tradition that’s still ongoing in my life is decluttering or “spring cleaning”.

With a large family, such as ours, the flow of items into the home is enough to cripple someone trending more and more minimalist over time. We try to guide our kids towards healthy relationships with things. The world we live in today is wrought with a constant consumption mindset. Storage facilities continue to pop up at alarming rates. Already oversized homes are pushed to the brink with things. Garages are no longer places to park cars, but rather a morgue of impulse buys or items which no longer fit whatever a consumerism curated version of happiness fulfills.

While minimalism in design has always been something I’ve appreciated, the older I get the more I lean into applying concepts of minimalism to other areas of life. This isn’t with the goal of having a certain quantity of items, but rather is part of a broader life theme I’ve come to frame as “Refinement & Distillation”. I’ll use other longer form vehicles than this newsletter to talk more about that soon.

The key difference is that minimalism is often, generally speaking, primarily focused on only the concept of less. While less is certainly a component of the journey I’m on, the flip side of the quanity coin is quality. To reduce with only quantity in mind feels half-hearted. To quote Dieter Rams (yet again), I’m going for a “less, but better” outcome. This extends beyond physcial goods or belongings. It applies to digital assets. Digital presense. The footprint of all things in my universe of existence. Relationships, thoughts, obligations, feelings, motives, opinions… the list goes on. While I’m far from a Zen Monk sitting in silence, mindful of all that exists around them, I’m on a journey.

If one were to zoom out, how I got here would look like a splintered and fragmented maze of paths; many leading nowhere or in circular motions without the respect for forward progress. While that may sound negative, it isn’t. In order to refine and distill, you have to have something to eliminate. What comes from that process has the opportunity to be greater than what could have been from a smaller set of inputs.

Consider a beautiful Bonsai tree. The only way it could get to that point of beauty is to have had branches and growth to prune away.

1️⃣ Something I saw…

The Japanese Garden - Six N. Five

Inspired by the Japanese gardens and their architecture, amazed by the cleanliness and beauty they have, we took all the references that we collected for a while, and we tried to make our interpretation of this.

I have this lovely work by Six N. Five bookmarked and look at it often.

2️⃣ Something I read…

12 Essential Rules to Live More Like a Zen Monk

Leo Babauta highlights 12 rules to live more like a Zen Monk. I would have titled the article “12 Essential Rules to Live Less Like a Typical Human Being”.

3️⃣ Something I heard…

My all-time favorite rap group is Outkast. This conversation with André 3000 is such a great listen for anyone aware of his talent and the lore of his absense from music making. One great moment comes when Rubin asks him what he’s listening to lately:

Instrumental music. I was just turned on to Steve Reich. I knew Philip Glass and then somebody said, “If you like Philip Glass you’ll love Steve Reich,”… I kind of like music I can have my own thoughts to.

📬 Thanks for reading!

You made it to the end of the newsletter! 🚀

If you found this worth the time we both invested, consider buying me a ☕ or simply sharing this newsletter with a friend.

If you have feedback on how to make this newsletter better, email me.

For more of my writing, check out Tangible Life.

Angles Outside 180 📐

This section is only for the folks that scroll to the bottom of a newsletter the way true fans sit to the end of the credits in a movie hoping for a little more…