The Minimalists

Hello Readers

 I hope you guys are doing great!

 Love people, not things; use things not people.

-Spencer W. Kimball

 When did you buy your last phone, laptop, or any gismo?

 But did you want it? Or did you buy it because you were bored with what you already had?

Last week I was searching to watch some documentaries, by the way, I am a huge documentary buff!

 I came to cross this one: The minimalists: less is now. I liked the concept and got hooked on it.

It's about the real-life stories of two people, Joshua Fields Millburn, and Ryan Nicodemus.

 They were living their everyday lives in America, but something was not going well. They were not feeling happy.

 The documentary starts with an interview with Ryan, where he says he had this craving of buying things, and he had filled his place with lots of stuff and felt he would feel happy by having these material things.

 But for some reason, both the friends never felt that real happiness in life.

 Then something hit their mind; they started living with only what they wanted and gave away all the extra stuff.

 So, they called it minimalism, started making road trips across the USA, and started giving out this message.

 Many people got influenced by this and started feeling the happiness of things just enough to survive. They even started living in minimized houses.

 So, they conclude by showing us having less okay, and we all should be away from the delusion of consumerism!

 Being an Indian, the thing hit me the moment i saw this piece; in our scriptures, they have permanently imbibed the model of "having less is fine."

 The Indian scriptures have always believed in knowledge and the other great principles of materialism at the end of the chain.

Courtesy Google images

 Incredibly, I started writing this blog, and my first topic was about materialism; here I am, 280 blogs later writing about it.

 I hope we all stay away from consumerism and think of giving our surplus to the less fortunate.

 Thanks for your valuable time.

 Enjoy the rest of your day!

 Helios.

Biscuits- A world of Haves and Have-nots!

Hello readers

 

Hope you are all fine and safe.

 

This topic is more of a real-time experience and maybe the same for all of you who live in a metropolitan city.

 

Biscuits have been one of my topics which I have wanted to write about for some years now. The idea behind biscuits is simple the world is full of haves and have-nots, and this one is more about the have-nots.

 

In the initial years of my career, I used to travel long hours by bus. When I peeked outside the windows, there were beggar communities under the flyovers; beside the footpath, as soon as the signal turns red, they swarm the vehicle population to get a coin and run back under the flyover. 

 

Some say the whole beggars' community is a mafia-run racket; some say they are people who have lost all hopes in life and ended up here!

 

I partially agree that but still should understand the very reason someone chose the profession, if I could call that as a profession, is that they cannot get their daily needs like us. 

 

 Whether they are real beggars or just pretending to be one is a matter of debate, but this is not a balanced society.

 

Each morning when I go for a walk, there are two to three strays that follow me. I feed them with biscuits. 

 

But I realized certain people are even more unlucky than those dogs!

 

They can't afford a square meal and a place to sleep.

 

I have heard people giving me a philosophical touch to this quoting that this is their Karma and all that, alright accepted! But if we had the intention, we would have worked to change it.

 

How many of us treat people in rags who don't have any hope and sleep under bus stations and train stations footpaths as humans? We just pass by them and maybe offer them a coin if they pester us; otherwise, we just read them as tales of a footpath.

 

I belong to a group of haves, which makes me more responsible for fulfilling some needs to my capacity for have-nots. If we don't do that, I feel this societal imbalance will never resolve.

 

There is also another way of looking at this. You will be surprised to know sometimes they haves. Even though they all have the materialistic things in the world, they are poorer than the have-nots.

 

Why do I say so? You may love money, but money doesn't love you back, right? But a person would! So, you are poorer than the poorest there!

 

This takes us to the point that only your materialistic needs are not essential, but your intellectual and emotional are also crucial in life, finally leads to mental balance. 

There are only two families in this world, as a grandmother of mine used to say: The haves and have-nots.

-Miguel De Cervantes

Poor and rich is something man created, but the poorest may be richer in their mindset and qualities.

 

If that doesn't fulfil, then even the wealthiest man in the world wouldn't feel happy!

 

Try to start correcting the imbalance by walking baby steps towards giving and helping people in need.

 

Trust me, you will feel way better!

 

Thanks a lot for your time. Have a great day.

 

Helios