Thread by @wolftivy

So I now house my family of four in a studio apartment. It raises some eyebrows, but that's about the worst of it. Here's how and why we do it:

Read Thoreau: material stuff is mostly liability. You only NEED to keep the vital heat in your body via food, fuel and insulation, which is easy and cheap. Everything else is either confused distraction or directly and explicitly enables philosophical, social, political life.

Sleeping: We use Japanese-style futon for sleeping on the floor. All four of us in one bed of two mattresses. More room than we're currently using. During the day, they fold up neatly and become our couches.

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You'd think the kids need room space, but they don't really, and inside is bad for kids. We take them to the park, the grocery store, parties. Home is for eating, sleeping, and storage.

We have more space in our studio apartment than we use, to be honest.

For eating, we kneel on cushions at a coffee-table. The coffee tables can double as couch/bench. Minimal! The big trick is rearranging the space for different use cases, and objects doing double duty.

We do a small prayer before every meal, which my son now insists on.

We do have chairs (though we haven't rescued them from storage yet; just moved). Chairs are good for general sitting, hosting, playing music, working at the desk.

Even Thoreau had three chairs in his tiny house (much smaller than ours).

For cooking, most studio apartments have a perfectly adequate kitchen for preparing the kind of simple whole foods we eat.

With less space, you do have to stay on top of the dishes a bit more, but constraints that force discipline are good for you.

We keep our wardrobes small enough to fit in a few drawers. Most people have too many clothes. Even @tannerguzy says this: the key is having versatile quality items that work well together. Quantity is a distraction.

My general philosophy is to keep the necessities to an absolute minimum, and own as little stuff as possible, taking advantage of versatility and multiple uses. Thoreau teaches that material things are mostly liability: storage, upkeep, attention, implied need to be used.

Once you isolate and solve the necessities (keep the heat in) with very little, the purpose of all other wealth becomes much clearer: it is purely tools for the accomplishment of social, intellectual, spiritual, and political goals. Subordinate your wealth to your plans.

Simplicity isn't just about frugality, but also clarity, which is much more valuable: owning too much begets confusion about what your stuff is even for, and whether it owns you, or you own it. Things have psychological power: don't let them get disorganized or out of hand!

The spiritual element of material things, their power over your own psyche, the need to relate to them in sometimes spiritual ways, and above all the need to keep them disciplined and tidy is at the heart of @MarieKondo's animist approach to home living, as well.