483 | The Renunciation

The Minimalists talk about the difference between minimalism and renunciation, and they explore the unforeseen downsides of renouncing things. Discussed in this episode: What's the best way to avoid purchasing things that will soon be junk? (2:48) What topping should never go on pizza? (23:03) Listener tip: Make your phone more boring to make it more useful. (43:14) Listen to the full Maximal episode on Patreon: patreon.com/theminimalists http://patreon.com/theminimalists Detailed show notes: minimalists.com/podcast http://minimalists.com/podcast Recorded at Earthing Studios http://earthing.com/simple.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:20Speaker 00

  Every little thing you think that you need. Every little thing you think that you need. Every little thing that's just feeding your greed. Oh, I bet that you'll be fine without it.

• 0:39Speaker 01

  You're listening to the Minimalist Podcast with Joshua Fields Milburn and TK Coleman, recorded live at Earthing Studios in sunny California.

• 0:47Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes, thank you, Malibu. Hello, everybody. Sunny indeed, although just yesterday I was going out for a little hike and there was snow on top of the mountains because I guess it was rain for a day and the snow in Ojai was there. And man, was it beautiful. And two days before that, it was 84 degrees. So amazing weather. Greetings from sunny California. Thank you, Malibu. Hello, everybody. Today, we're talking about the many ways in which minimalism is different from the act of renouncing your things. We often confuse the two. We're going to talk about that. We're also going to talk about and explore the unforeseen downsides of renunciation.

• 1:30Joshua Fields Millburn?

  So coming up on this free public minimal episode, a caller has a question about foregoing impulse purchases that will soon turn into junk. And then we've got a funny but insightful question about the toppings that definitely don't belong on a pizza. That's all of our Right Here, Right Now segment. And a listener tip, you can check out the maximal edition of episode 483. That's the full two-hour episode where we answer three times as many questions over on Patreon. The link is in the description. When you subscribe, you can listen to our private podcast episodes on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or whatever your favorite podcast app is. Plus, you'll gain access to all of our archives, all the way back to episode 001.

• 2:14Joshua Fields Millburn?

  That's a full decade of podcast archives. By the way, big thanks to our patrons. Your support keeps our podcast 100% advertisement free because sing along at home, y'all.

• 2:26Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Advertisements suck. No, we're not renouncing advertisements, but they do kinda taste, they taste kinda bad. We'll talk about that here in a bit. Anyway, let's start with our callers. If you have a question or comment for our show, we'd love to hear from you. Our phone number is 406-219-7839, or you can email a voice recording right from your phone to [email protected]. Our first question today is from Jess.

• 2:51Speaker 03

  Hello, my name is Jess from North Dakota. I'm a Patreon member. Super glad to be part of this community. I have a question around purchasing things. I don't really do New Year's Eve resolutions, but I have been thinking about maybe doing something around the lines of not buying anything I don't really need, such as, you know, food and things like that. I do really well with it for a while, but then I end up just like binging and blowing

• 3:29Speaker 03

  a bunch of money in one day. And I just, I'm curious, like, when you chose to not buy anything for a year, or however long it was, what helped you remember? Because at the moment, it feels like I really need it, but then I just, I don't know, maybe I don't need it as much as I thought I did. I don't know. Anyway, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Thanks.

• 3:57Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I really need it. Gotta have it. I've heard my daughter say that so many times. I need it. We'll be at a store. There was one time, I told this story, and a lot of people use things. We were at a store and my daughter asked, like, can I get something while we're here? And I said, what do you want? And she goes, I don't know, but I just want something. And we develop these patterns of I feel like I really need it. In the moment, it feels urgent. It feels real because you have that emotion and that scarcity mindset creeps in. The impulse then takes over and I am incomplete without it. I didn't even know this thing existed before I got into the store.

• 4:42Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I wasn't even thinking about this thing before I got into the store. I certainly didn't think I needed this thing before I got into the store. This thing wasn't on my shopping list when I got into the store, but now that I'm here, it's enticing and I really need it. Now, what Jess is referring to is way back in 2011, we were a few weeks into starting theminimists.com, Nick Ademas and I, and I was looking for things to write about. I'd never done New Year's resolutions and I said, you know what? We're the minimalist now. I'm going to not purchase anything for an entire year. It wasn't really about the spirit of renunciation. We're going to get into what renunciation means in a moment, but it was about, hey, as a minimalist, it should be easy to not have to purchase any new items.

• 5:26Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Obviously, I can still purchase consumables if I need to buy soap or toilet paper. I'm not going to deprive myself of that, but I realized that I was programmed. And as soon as I went into this experiment, I felt a lot like Jess. I'd get into the store and my programming was, oh, that's really nice. Oh, I think I'll buy it. And then, of course, I couldn't buy it because I was doing this experiment where I'm not going to buy anything for an entire year. And so I would look at the thing and say, oh, that's really nice. I think, oh, wait, I can't. But over the course of the first five months, what I found is I reprogrammed that impulse where I would show up to a store to buy some toilet paper or to buy some toothpaste and

• 6:10Joshua Fields Millburn?

  there'd be something else there that I really need it. But that really need it transformed into, oh, that's nice. Or, oh, doesn't that look cool? Or, wow.

• 6:21Joshua Fields Millburn?

  It's like going to a museum and seeing a piece of art. I'll never try to take a Picasso painting off the wall and bring it home with me. Not only because I'd get arrested, but I know that I couldn't afford it financially. But also, maybe I can't afford everything that's associated with bringing this product home from Target or Walmart or Macy's or Bloomingdale's or wherever we are. Amazon.com, right? Where we go to these places and I feel like I really need it. Now, minimalism is the amplification of spaciousness. Minimalism is the thing that gets us past the things so we can focus on life's most important things, which it turns out aren't things at all. And renunciation is a little bit different.

• 7:03Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I have the Merriam-Webster definition here in front of me. I usually...

• 7:08Speaker 01

  Thank goodness you didn't bring the book. The whole dictionary, you'd be torn in half by now.

• 7:14Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I usually, I like to avoid definitions, but with this one in particular, I think it makes sense to make a distinction because a lot of people find minimalism, whether they find one of our documentaries on Netflix, or they see a YouTube video from us, or they find someone else who's into decluttering, and they think about minimalism as a renunciation of things. And on the surface, I could see why you might think that. Oh yeah, it's about getting rid of your stuff and living with nothing. And that's a parody of minimalism. The paradox of minimalism is I get far more value from my things now, not because I renounced things, but because I got rid of the things that were in the way.

• 7:58Joshua Fields Millburn?

  They were actually blocking the value of the things that were right there in front of me, or could be right there in front of me if they weren't covered up by all of this excess. So, letting go of the excess, letting go of the clutter, letting go of the things that are in the way, that's really what minimalism as a lifestyle is about. Of course, there are different types of minimalism. Minimalist literature, minimalist art, minimalist architecture, et cetera, et cetera. When we're talking about minimalism as a lifestyle, it's about getting rid of the excess that's in the way. You contrast that with something like renunciation, and I have... I have this definition here in front of me to renounce is to give up, refuse, or resign usually by formal declaration.

• 8:39Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And so when you say, hey, I'm going to give up purchases for a year, maybe that is a type of renunciation. But there's always a light at the end of the tunnel with these little stoical experiments we do. A year is usually too long for most people. Last year, we gave up social media for a year, personally for a year, 10 months for the minimalists. And you and I had a conversation, the reason that we're doing this episode today is when Courtney Carver was in here, we were doing that five-part series. Do you remember what I said to you that triggered a, an almost an emotional response in you? Do you remember what I said?

• 9:15Speaker 04

  You were talking to Courtney and you said something to the effect of not wanting to renounce social media. And it sounded to me like you were accusing yourself of doing that.

• 9:26Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah.

• 9:26Speaker 04

  And I called you and says, hey, I never saw you talking like that or acting like that. Why would you describe yourself in that way?

• 9:34Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And my fear was that we were renouncing it. Because as soon as you renounce something, you're tied to it. In fact, you're forever defined by the things you renounce. And so I'm not against renouncing something. But I think there's a difference between renouncing something and saying, that is something I'm not going to do, I'm forcing it out of my life. Because then you become defined by it. My mother was an alcoholic and, and she went to AA regularly. But her life, when she was sober, was seemed to be even more defined by alcohol and alcoholism through the renunciation of it. Now, perhaps that was the best thing for her in that case, that, that level of abstinence.

• 10:19Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I remember we had Peter Rollins on the show. He said, whenever I talk to or counsel a sex worker, they are always talking about God because it's the thing that they feel like they've renounced. And so when I talk to priests, they're always talking about like sex and the obsession around that. And there's something about, and I'm interested in your take on this TK. When we renounce something, we become obsessed with it in a way, maybe because it's off limits?

• 10:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, the renunciation of renunciation is an interesting concept there. But yeah, there's something to this. You know, it's almost like the old experiment of, hey, try really hard right now to not think about an elephant, okay? Don't think about an elephant. Whatever you do, don't think about that. You are more likely in this moment to be thinking about an elephant than just about anything else because you're trying so hard to not think about an elephant. And the problem with that is we're motivated to not do these things because there's something within us saying, I am called to something higher. I exist for something that matters more than this, for a deeper kind of life, a richer kind of pleasure.

• 11:31Speaker 04

  And so we feel that desire to say no to the superficial pleasure, but since that's all we know is the addiction, the attachment, we cling ourselves to it more strongly by saying, I'm not gonna do it. And so we walk around all day, I'm not gonna do that thing. I'm not gonna smoke a cigarette today. I'm not gonna smoke a cigarette today. I'm not gonna smoke. I'm not gonna lose my cool. I'm not gonna lose my cool. I'm not gonna impulse buy. I'm not gonna impulse buy. And the moment that we're vulnerable, we miss out. It's almost like if I decided to say, you know what? I'm not gonna answer to TK anymore. I'm just gonna answer to Rick. That's my new name. And I tell everyone to call me Rick, right? And I go around saying, I'm not answering to TK. I'm not TK. I'm not TK. I'm not TK. Hey, Rick! Somebody says, hey, TK. I'm not TK. I'm not TK. And I don't say anything.

• 12:16Speaker 04

  I'm not TK. I'm not TK. One day, when I'm tired, I'm hungry, I'm dozing off, someone's gonna catch me sleeping. They're gonna say TK. And I'm gonna go, huh? Oh, darn it, I screwed up. Because that's just not how it works. So what is the underlying why that makes you want to renounce something in the first place? And how can you translate that no into something that you want to say yes to? On the other side of every no is a higher reality that you want to embrace and engage, that you want to say yes to and throw yourself into that. And so for me, renunciation is about redemption. We don't renunciate things, or renounce things, rather. We are looking to redeem things, to reclaim. Things to restore them to their rightful, healthful place.

• 13:01Speaker 04

  And how do you do that? By creating a little distance between you and the habitual, familiar autopilot usage of the thing. There's the old saying that water is to love what distances to, I'm sorry, distances to love what water is to fire. It extinguishes the little, but rekindles the great. Whatever is good, whatever is true in the things that we desire, that only becomes purified and amplified in a positive way when we exercise the self-control to step away from it and hit the reset button so that we can see it far away and not just up close.

• 13:37Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I love this distinction you're making. Would you say that then minimalism at its best is a way to redeem our things, to get more value from the things and not renounce the things? But also, there could be a spirit of renouncing clutter, but that is not, man, that is so hard to define because what is clutter to me is not clutter to thee, right? And therefore, something that gets in my way might serve you perfectly and might be a prized possession for you. But I can guarantee you, if you took 10 people who are listening to this right now and you got their top 10 possessions, the things that added the most value to their lives, we'd have 100 super valuable possessions, but valuable to them.

• 14:20Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And you put them in this room, in this studio, which is relatively small space. What is it, 700 square feet or something? Now we just have 100 items. They become clutter, even if they're not clutter for those people. They're clutter in the context here. And the best way to redeem those things is to make sure they're in the appropriate home and maybe even the appropriate space in that home. Does that distinction make sense to you?

• 14:42Speaker 04

  It makes a lot of sense. And it also reveals the importance of having some sense of why, some sense of purpose. Because you can't even know what clutter is unless you know what it's getting in the way of. In the same way that you can't know that you have a problem unless you have some desired state that this problem is disrupting or getting in the way of. Right? What does that mean to say, hey, if you, if you walk into this room and you see a tire sitting There in the middle of the floor. How do you know that's a problem? Because you have an ideal state that you want this room to be in. And that's getting in the way of that. You want a room that's unobstructed. You want space that you can move around freely in. And that's how you know the tires tires a problem. So how can we identify clutter? By knowing what our why is.

• 15:27Speaker 04

  Another thing that's so helpful with conversations like this too is we hear the phrase count your blessings. I also think it's important to count your miscalculations. We all have such a rich amount of experience. Wanting things, thinking in the moment that we need them. And then the world says no to us. And a few months or a few years later, we look back on that moment and we say, oh my gosh, I dodged a bullet. Oh my gosh, you saved my life by not giving me what I wanted. But then we just kind of move on and we forget about those experiences. But we all could feel books with those types of experiences. And when you take note of them, when you write them down, when you collect them,

• 16:08Speaker 04

  you start to accumulate a strong foundation for a different kind of faith. You start to develop a healthy sense of mistrust in those impulses. You realize that just because it really feels like I need something in the moment, doesn't mean that I actually need it. Why? Because I can look at my history and see that I've been wrong about this kind of thing thousands of times. Makes it a lot easier to have faith.

• 16:29Joshua Fields Millburn?

  That makes sense to me. And there's several synonyms here I found in the dictionary. Abandonment is one. So abandoning of things is not something that minimalism does. A resignation of things, it's obviously the opposite. We're not ascetics. People often think about that, you know, like we're going to live in a cave somewhere that we are doing ascetic practices that, you know, intentionally increase our level of pain or suffering in order to reach some sort of state of enlightenment. I'm not necessarily against those things, even if they're not for me. At best, I hope that I don't come across with a spirit of renunciation with anything here. I mean, even with advertisements, it started off as a joke.

• 17:13Joshua Fields Millburn?

  We, when we did this show, it started, we didn't have any advertisers. So, and I just didn't like ads. It didn't feel good to me. I didn't like the taste of it. The same way that I don't renounce oysters, I simply don't eat them. I don't smoke cigarettes. I've never renounced them. But my life is also not defined by it. And so it's possible to go without, to remove a thing even from your life without renouncing it. And if there is a reason to bring something back in, once you let it go, if you set something down, it's okay to pick it back up if it's going to add value to your life in some way. Which makes me curious, TK, is there anything that you have renounced in the past?

• 17:56Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And that you feel like, oh, yeah, I, uh, I don't know why I felt like I, the need to renounce that. It's okay for me to, to bring that back in some way.

• 18:06Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 18:08Speaker 04

  That's a tough one. That's a tough one because I, I'm slow to universalize.

• 18:14Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah.

• 18:15Speaker 04

  I think there are some things that are wrong or unhealthy for all of us, right? Like, none of us should be drinking cyanide.

• 18:22Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Mm-hmm.

• 18:22Speaker 04

  But I try to practice that sweep around your own front door mentality. And the big changes that I've had to make and that I continue to fight my battle in is with food and eating. And for me, there are certain things I just gotta say no to. And I see other people getting away with it all the time. Or at least they look like they're getting away. Sometimes people get away, seem like they get away with things, but they're not getting away with it.

• 18:51Joshua Fields Millburn?

  That's right.

• 18:51Speaker 04

  But I see people who look like they're getting away with things. And in some of those moments, I'm, I'm tempted to feel a little jealous or I'm tempted to say, now that's wrong what they're doing. But it's like, well, they have a different metabolic condition than me.

• 19:05Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Mm-hmm.

• 19:06Speaker 04

  They've got a different way of digesting their food than me. They haven't been to the hospital as far as I know for what I've been for. I've got to make the changes that I need to make and leave them alone, right? Leave them alone. Sometimes renunciation can come from a good place of recognizing a true source of universal evil. Oftentimes, it comes from a place of not wanting to walk the path you have to walk alone and needing to get other people to go along with you and using condemnation and the universalization of your own constraints.

• 19:39Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, yeah. Well, to get back to Jess's question and answer it head on, for me, it was much more about reprogramming my impulses than it was about just simply saying no to things. But sometimes I had to temporarily go without. It's okay to temporarily deprive yourself. You're not a deprivationist if you simply go without for a while. Have you ever tried to fast for a long period of time? The longest I ever fasted was six days. And that wasn't a renunciation of food. It was a test to see what would happen. And of course, I'm not going to then renounce food for the rest of my life because the rest of that life wouldn't be that long at that point. But it does allow you to understand what your limits are,

• 20:24Joshua Fields Millburn?

  what your programming is, what your cravings are. And so for me, that experiment of not purchasing anything for a year, which by the way, I failed at. I tried all kinds of things, but was it really a failure if I learned all of these really amazing lessons? About halfway into the year, I spilled tea all over my computer and it stopped working. And I tried to get around that. I'd go to the library to do work or I'd go to Nicodemus's condo and I'd borrow his laptop to write things. And then I would take these yellow legal pads that I had at home and I'd fill those up. But once those filled up, I couldn't buy more paper. My pen ran out of ink and I couldn't buy another pen. And at some point, it did feel like renunciation. It did feel like an unnecessary deprivation. And so eventually I broke down about six months into the experiment,

• 21:08Joshua Fields Millburn?

  six or seven months in, and I bought a new used computer. But I bought a new computer that was new to me at that point. And because I realized it wasn't about not making purchases. That's not what this experiment was about. It was about understanding the patterns, the habits that had steered me down this path of debt and overconsumption and acquiring all of these things that had gotten in the way. Jess, I'd love to send you a copy of The Minimalist's book. It's called Essential. It's a collection of 150 essays. There's 12 different areas of intentional living in that book. And you know, I'm a sucker for first lines. And it's one of my favorite first lines of any of our books.

• 21:52Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And that first line is, "There's a shopping mall in San Diego that used to be a prison." Woo! And the argument in that essay is that maybe it is a different kind of prison now. We're imprisoned by our things. We're holding on to all of these things. Our prison cells are built with bars of consumption, or really bars of overconsumption. And so I'd love to send you a copy of Essential. It's available in paperback, or ebook, or audiobook, whichever you'd like, Jess. We'll send you a copy of Essential. Before we get back to our callers, Malabama, what time is it?

• 22:28Speaker 01

  You know what time it is. It's time for the lightning round where we answer the Patreon community chat's question of the week.

• 22:33Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes, indeed. Now, during the lightning round, we attempt to answer your question with a short, shareable minimal maxim. You can find this episode's maxims in the show notes over at theminimalists.com/podcast and every minimal maxim ever at minimalmaxims.com. We'll also deliver our weekly show notes directly to your inbox, including seven new maxims every Monday for free if you sign up for our email newsletter at theminimalists.e-mail. We'll never send you spam, or junk, or ads, but we will start your week off with a dose of simplicity. What's the question of the week this week?

• 23:05Speaker 01

  What topping should never go on pizza? Why?

• 23:09Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Uh-oh! Now, Bama, when we posted this in the Patreon community chat, tell me about the experience over there.

• 23:17Speaker 01

  I had way too much fun, and I think so did the patrons. At one point, someone asked in there, "I ran out of room collecting my favorites, y'all. You guys are so funny." Someone was like, "Are we about to have a podcast on pizza clutter?"

• 23:33Speaker 01

  But they were so creative and they were fun and they, they, they were very playful with it, which just made it so enjoyable. But yeah, we were trying to brainstorm something that would tie in with renunciation. And I jokingly said to you, pineapple on pizza, yea or nay? And you were like, hang on, wait, there's something there. And I'm like, no, I'm kidding. What?

• 23:52Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I loved it because, you know, here's the thing. Some people really enjoy pineapple on pizza. So before we, we get into the, the essence of this question, let's be a little playful with it. If you're ordering one pizza for the rest of your life, Malabama, what does it, what does it taste like? What toppings are on it or not on it?

• 24:09Speaker 01

  Oh, you don't want to ask me that. Like, I don't, oh, I'm a maximalist with pizzas.

• 24:14Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Go for it. So was my mother.

• 24:16Speaker 01

  I mean, listen, where I live, there's a pizza place right next door to me that sells pizzas with blooming onions in the center, with shrimp and tuna, with mocha bun crusts. Like, I've had it all. It's all delicious. I have not found something that I, that's edible and, and meant to be with food that I haven't liked on a pizza.

• 24:35Joshua Fields Millburn?

  You know what? I think I'm pretty similar to that. I like almost any topping on a pizza that is within reason. And my, my, my margin of reason is really large here. My mother, when I was growing up, she used to always order, we'd go to Cassano's in Middletown, Ohio. Shout out to Cassano's, a Dayton institute. And she would order the everything, she wanted everything plus anchovies, which is weird that anchovies aren't included in the everything because they even know like, okay, a lot of people aren't going to want the anchovies on their pizza. And so I grew up eating everything on the pizza, including anchovies, which just tasted like really salty sausage to me. But I would tell you that, um, one

• 25:18Joshua Fields Millburn?

  of my favorite things to do is watch the Dave Portnoy videos, the One Bite Pizza reviews. I don't know if y'all are familiar with them.

• 25:24Speaker 01

  No, never heard of this.

• 25:26Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Every time I'm at home with Bex, we'll spend three minutes and just watch a Dave Portnoy pizza video. He puts one out every single day. He's the owner of Barstool Sports, but he goes to a pizza shop every day. He goes to several and he just films a bunch. In a day in different cities, he might be in Toledo, Ohio one day, or he might be in North Dakota, or Miami, Florida, or Denver, and he's reviewing pizza, the local pizza scene. He always rates the pizza on a scale of one to 10, no even number. So it's always like an 8.3, or a 7.6, or a 5.4. And he's pretty strict with his, his guidelines, but he always orders the same thing. And I think it's for consistency. He always orders a cheese

• 26:09Joshua Fields Millburn?

  pizza, like a full cheese pizza, no other toppings, because it's much more difficult to compare all of these different things. But I think also from a preference standpoint, he seems to be a minimalist with respect to his pizza. It is dough, it's sauce, it's cheese, and that's it. He doesn't want any of the excess. And I think if I had to order one pizza for the rest of my life, it would probably be that one. What about you, Savvy D?

• 26:37Speaker 05

  I love a Hawaiian. I love the pineapple. It's, yeah, I love it. But I honestly never have pizza because it kind of just ruins the rest of my day.

• 26:45Speaker 01

  Oh, no.

• 26:46Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Isn't that true? Like, that's another way to think about it, right? It's delicious. You get that moment of gustatory pleasure. But then it's like, oh, what did I do? And I know that I haven't had pizza in so long, that if I had a pizza right now, it would, the rest of my day would just be, maybe the rest of my week, who knows? I would just be like, oh, why did I do it?

• 27:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 27:09Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And because we don't think about like, what, this, this moment of, of pleasure, this moment of impulse. And it's not about renouncing pizza for me. It's just, I know what the consequences are, and it's not a price that I am willing to pay. What about you, TK?

• 27:25Speaker 04

  Oh, man.

• 27:26Speaker 01

  Assuming it doesn't mess with your system. Like, what's the topping for you?

• 27:29Speaker 04

  Don't worry, Ben, I wasn't gonna torture y'all with that. Well, technically, I am no longer able to eat pizza.

• 27:35Speaker 01

  I invaded it because I'm indecisive, but that's my own problem.

• 27:39Speaker 04

  Well, it's like, it's like music, you know. There's joy in a great lyric, but man, it's the melody that catches me.

• 27:45Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 27:45Speaker 04

  So when it comes to pizza, it's not about the topping, it's about the sauce.

• 27:49Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 27:49Speaker 04

  And so the pizza that I'm eating for the rest of my life is pesto sauce instead of the marinara, or instead of the tomato sauce.

• 27:57Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Get him patrons.

• 27:58Speaker 04

  It's pesto, yeah. Next time you order a cheese pizza, get pesto as your sauce.

• 28:03Joshua Fields Millburn?

  All right, so I want to encourage the patrons to yell at TK and Savvy D for their takes here. No, but here's the thing, we get back to the essence of this question, and before we give our pithy answers that are more philosophical here, maybe let's hear from some of our simpletons. What do our listeners have to say?

• 28:19Speaker 01

  Let's get to the fun answers. Carly said, "I have an aversion to buffalo chicken pizza. I don't like celery and I'm allergic to peanuts. What makes a pizza a pizza? How creative are we getting here? The debate is still going on if a hot dog is a sandwich."

• 28:34Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Ooh, is a hot dog a sandwich? We're not going to get into that right now, we don't have enough time.

• 28:38Speaker 01

  It's too existential.

• 28:39Joshua Fields Millburn?

  But it is a great question, what makes a pizza a pizza? Last week, we had that whole conversation with Annika Harris, and the very end, we were talking about the sort of philosophical approach to like, with what she was talking about, I said, ultimately, a thing, things don't exist. And what I meant by that is like, separate things don't exist. If everything is one, everything is birthed out of the universe of the earth or whatever, then it's all just one thing, right? So they're not separate things. And it's sort of how we ended the podcast episode. Now, obviously, we know what we mean when we say things, but I was talking to my daughter about it, and we maybe had a three-hour conversation about the Annika Harris thing,

• 29:23Joshua Fields Millburn?

  because I was talking to her about how there is no self, and she's like, "What are you talking about? I'm right here, right?" And so we really got into the details. What makes an Ella an Ella? What makes a pizza a pizza? And if I remove one slice from the pizza, is it not still a pizza? If I put pineapples on it, is it not a pizza anymore? If I put pineapples and peanuts on it, is it not a pizza anymore? Or it could simply be a pizza that I don't enjoy consuming, but it's still a pizza. What else?

• 29:53Speaker 01

  Douglas said, definitely pineapple, but not for the reason you think. While something sweet can complement the savory as pineapple would with ham, the very nature of pineapple brings additional soggyness into the picture and thus extra napkins. I will save my pineapple for pina coladas. Thank you very much.

• 30:10Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Extra napkins.

• 30:14Joshua Fields Millburn?

  What did Julie have to say?

• 30:15Speaker 01

  Julie said, I try to be quite open about toppings since the right execution can make many ingredients work. I thought chocolate would be a safe one, but after Googling chocolate pizza and finding several results, and since I haven't tried it, I can't really say it shouldn't be done. Who am I to judge? Perhaps it's delicious.

• 30:32Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Now that is the spirit of letting go, Julie. Like, you know what? Who am I to judge? Maybe it's delicious and maybe it's gross to me, but it's delicious to someone else. I don't like oysters, but every time I go on tour with Nicodemus, we'd inevitably end up at an oyster bar and he's just pounding a bunch of oysters. And I could say, well, you know, you shouldn't be eating those, but why? Who am I to judge? Perhaps those are delicious to him. What else you got?

• 31:06Speaker 01

  Donna said anchovies. I'm allergic and prefer not to die during my dinner.

• 31:10Joshua Fields Millburn?

  There you go. And so don't put anchovies on Donna's pizza. And I think the peanut thing is valid. I dated someone once who was allergic to pineapple. So they had even a different reason they couldn't put pineapple on a pizza, even if it was delicious to them. She was allergic to, to mushrooms, coffee and pineapple. So I remember one year at Christmas, I wrapped all three up in really nice, like fancy paper. I got her a bag of coffee. I got her a pineapple that had all this beautiful wrapping on it. And I got her a thing of mushrooms. It was more of a metaphor. She was an artist, so she totally got it. It was a metaphor of like, we often give gifts that people end up being allergic to.

• 31:49Speaker 01

  Deep. Can I say one thing about the anchovies for people who are not Donna and not going to die, but you want to try to like them, but they're too salty? This trick was given to me when I was in college. Get like sliced tomato to go like diced chunks. Tomato to balance out the saltiness. That is the only way I've ever found it's enjoyable to have anchovies because then it it kind of balances it out. That's my two cent.

• 32:12Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I quite enjoy them, but I'd like to try that for sure.

• 32:14Speaker 01

  All right.

• 32:15Joshua Fields Millburn?

  What else?

• 32:15Speaker 01

  Jackie said, I was going to say anything goes, but now that I've read everyone else's responses, I agree with Faye. Potatoes are a no go.

• 32:22Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I don't know. I mean, I've never had potatoes on a pizza, but I mean, it's probably delicious.

• 32:28Speaker 01

  I've had a sweet potato crust and it was amazing.

• 32:31Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Oh, yeah. I've had a cauliflower crust and it was really good.

• 32:34Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 32:34Speaker 04

  And you guys have problems with pesto, man. That's unbelievable.

• 32:37Speaker 01

  I ain't got beef with pesto. Like, I will absolutely be down for pesto.

• 32:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, definitely don't do beef with pesto.

• 32:43Joshua Fields Millburn?

  You're from Chicago. So is it a deep dish pesto?

• 32:47Speaker 04

  Wait, I thought we were talking about deep dish. What's pizza if not that?

• 32:50Speaker 01

  TK's like, I thought we were talking about the correct way to do pizza.

• 32:53Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Right. Are you guys talking about those like?

• 32:54Speaker 01

  Separate debate.

• 32:55Speaker 04

  Thin slices of bread with cheese on them? Is that what you're?

• 32:58Speaker 01

  I do not discriminate against the different thicknesses of pizza. I love them all.

• 33:02Joshua Fields Millburn?

  TK's renouncing real pizza.

• 33:05Speaker 04

  I renounce all non-Chicago style deep dish pizza.

• 33:08Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Let's do one more.

• 33:09Speaker 01

  This one's from Mike. We all have different palates and different interests. It would be a shame to dismiss one thing outright.

• 33:16Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes, and that is the heart of minimalism versus renunciation. Mike, you said it best. Congratulations. How about you, listeners? What toppings should never go on a pizza for you? And let us know why. You can tell us in the Patreon community chat, which by the way, is free. You can join it for free, even if you don't subscribe to the private podcast. Obviously, we'd love for you to subscribe to the private podcast, but join us in the Patreon community chat. We have a whole community of people, thousands of you are interacting with each other. Okay, give me something pithy, TK. What toppings should never go on a pizza and why?

• 33:51Speaker 04

  Never choose an ingredient that makes you regret the first bite. I mean, there's an obvious application to this, and that would be whatever it is you want to do, choose the first step that's right for you, because that first step is critical. It can be uncomfortable. It can be painful. It can be extremely difficult. But you want that first step to confirm you on your path and make you feel like, all right, even though this is hard, there's something about this first step that really reinforces the values that are driving me forward. But when it comes to pizza. This isn't something that we have to eat. This is something that we do for fun. This is something that we do in a spirit of play. And when it comes to choosing what you do in a spirit of play, you gotta remember from James P. Carstens, what is the first rule of play? Is that one cannot be forced to play.

• 34:36Speaker 04

  You can't play by somebody else's rules. You can't play, you can be forced to participate in a game, but you gotta choose to play. And if you're gonna do something for fun, forget all the opinions. You gotta have that for other stuff in life. You gotta react to what other people are doing with other stuff in life. And there's plenty of opportunity to be mad about what somebody else likes and what somebody else says. When it comes to the things that you do for fun, be opinion free. That's the one topping that should never go on it. A frickin' opinion. I'm doing this for me and I'm gonna have fun. I don't care what you think and I don't care how you have fun.

• 35:07Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes, yes, so good. You're making me think about, last week I started to try a new stoical experiment for me. It was setting down this, this verbiage of I have to do something. Professor Sean was in here last week. We were talking after the podcast and we, he and I had some meeting scheduled. And I said, hey, is it okay if we do that one on Zoom instead of in person? And I was getting ready to say, because I have to go help my daughter with some math stuff. And I said, oh, I don't like the way that feels.

• 35:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 35:38Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I want to go help my daughter with some math stuff. Now, same outcome, but just deciding that this is what I want to do. If not, why am I choosing to do it? And even if it feels like something that isn't that enjoyable in the moment, there has to be a reason that I'm doing it.

• 35:56Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 35:57Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I want to go to work today. Well, why? Because I want to pay the bills that I, instead of I have to go to work because everyone has to pay the bills. That becomes a script, that becomes a program. And, and there's even a, a flavor of renunciation in that, like,

• 36:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 36:12Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I sure would love to not have to do this, but it's like, well, no, I'm doing this for a reason.

• 36:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 36:17Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And so I might as well want to do it. Because, I mean, the truth is, I do want to do it, or at least I want the outcome that it's going to give me. Otherwise, why am I doing it at all? Now TK, this question about the pizza and what toppings should never go on a pizza, why did we pick this one in our brainstorming session when we had all of these other, I guess, more practical options?

• 36:39Speaker 04

  Well, because this topic of renunciation is about our ideas regarding what we should never do, what other people should never do, and we knew that we get certain kinds of answers if we tackled it head on philosophically, seriously, in a straightforward manner. But sometimes the insights you get from people, when you can find a question that's a little lighthearted, a little fun, and they're not sure why you're asking them, it just gets more revealing. And Bama came up with this brilliant idea because pizza is one of those things that we really do get opinionated about when it comes to toppings. And so we thought, this is a question which if people answer, they're going to reveal something about the way they hold opinions and the way they see other people.

• 37:23Speaker 04

  But they're going to do it in a way to where there's no room to guess what we want to hear.

• 37:26Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes, yeah, which that spirit of should. You should do this, or everyone should behave this way. And this is what should go on a pizza. This is what shouldn't go on a pizza. It's, as you said, it's an opinion, which brings me to my pithy answer here, which is every should is a new bar in your ever-expanding prison compound. It's not just a prison cell anymore because we have so many shoulds. You should put this on a pizza. You should work first shift. You should wake up at 5:00 AM. You should eat these foods. You should have three meals a day. You should have one meal a day. You should have six small meals a day to stoke your metabolic fire.

• 38:10Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Whatever your shoulds are, they become a way to imprison ourselves and also a way to make us feel bad about ourselves as well. We pick up everyone else's shoulds. We invent our own shoulds. We manipulate the shoulds and change the shoulds and remix the shoulds. And then we look around before we know it and it's like, I've got all these things I should be doing. I'm not doing most of them. No wonder I feel miserable because I've told myself there's a story of I should be doing this. And if I do everything I should do, well, then I should be happy. And of course, it never works because there will always be more shoulds than you can keep up with.

• 38:51Speaker 04

  Imagine sitting around looking at everybody enjoying pizza, arguing about this, and you go, But I don't even like pizza. But everyone else has so much fun, I shouldn't like it. And if that sounds silly to you, substitute pizza for possessions. And that's a game that we all play with ourselves.

• 39:06Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, yeah. The renunciation of a possession. You shouldn't want that. You shouldn't have that. You shouldn't make a certain amount of money. You shouldn't make below a certain amount of money. What happens here is we trap ourselves, right? And we never even, you said the why thing earlier. We never stop to think about what is the why behind that? Okay, you shouldn't put anchovies on Donna's pizza because she'll die. That makes a whole lot of sense to me. There is a definitive why behind that. But if it's, you shouldn't put potatoes on a pizza. Well, I live by the law of contrary public opinion. And so as soon as someone tells me you shouldn't put potatoes on a pizza. It's like, I don't know.

• 39:50Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Now I kind of want to try it because you said I shouldn't do it. You know, if you, Rob Bell says, if you want your kids to read the Bible, forbid them from having it in the house. And that's not a comment about the Bible. That is a comment about renunciation. About saying you're not allowed to have this, do this, think about it. And then all of a sudden, it's like, ah, but now I'm obsessed with it. We become obsessed with the things that we're not allowed to touch. The things that are off limits are often the things that define us. All right, that's the end of page one. We still have an entire switchboard of callers to talk to. But first, real quick for right here, right now. Here's one thing that's going on in the life of the minimalist.

• 40:34Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Now, I'm a little hesitant to mention this. We're doing a retreat next month and it's only 30 people. It's called Simple Haven. It's a three day minimalist retreat. Me and TK and Nicodemus will be there. And we're reserving it for 30 people. And I wanted to come on here today and be like, all right, there's 30 slots available. But we announced it on Patreon this weekend and immediately like 20 of the seats filled up. And it's a small venue. It's the Ojai Art Center. And so we can't just release a bunch more tickets or anything. So I'm letting you know now publicly. You can go to theminimists.com, you click events there at the top and you'll see Simple Haven there. It's a three day minimalist retreat. We're spending two days in Ojai, California at the Ojai Art Center. And the third day, it's a Friday and Saturday,

• 41:19Joshua Fields Millburn?

  April 25th and 26th, 2025. And then the third day, we're doing a Sunday Symposium with a larger group there in Santa Barbara. Now, of course, you can show up a little bit early, enjoy Ojai, maybe head out to the beach, do some hiking in the mountains, enjoy downtown Ojai. Malabam has been up there. Savvy D, I dragged him up to Ojai recently. He loved it. He said they have an amazing skate park there too, which you know, he's a skateboarder. So, man, it's just a magical place. You get to experience the sunshine, the mountains, the ocean waves, the palm trees, the orange trees, the oak trees.

• 41:56Speaker 01

  The pink moment?

• 41:57Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes. Oh, so at the end of the day, when the sun is setting, the mountains there turn pink and it is amazing. We'll do some hiking and things like that. You'll have a lot, plenty of opportunities to, to spend some time in Ojai the days before, days after, if you want to show up early. If you get there a day before, there's the Thursday Farmer's Market, which I brought Matt out to, and there's people juggling and there's kids running around and there's, it's just, it's a lot of fun. It's a simple, small place. And this is a three day retreat where you bring your curiosities, you bring your questions, you bring problems you might be trying to sort through, some challenges that you're having. And Nicodemus, TK and I are going to work with you to simplify some of those challenges, some of those queries, some of those quandaries,

• 42:42Joshua Fields Millburn?

  some of those problems you might be dealing with. What are you looking forward to most TK? The people, man. Being together. We are the world.

• 42:55Joshua Fields Millburn?

  It's gonna be a lot of fun. Ojai Art Center, you can find the tickets right now. 30 seats. Actually, there's less than 10 seats available at this point. So, as, as of this recording, there are fewer than 10 seats. Go to theminimists.com, click on events at the top, and we will see you in Ojai next month. Malabam, what else you got for us?

• 43:16Speaker 01

  Here's a minimalist insight from one of our listeners.

• 43:19Speaker 06

  Hey minimalists, my name is Curran, I'm from Kansas City, I've been a longtime fan. I wanted to comment on the woman who wrote in about how to better have your phone not be so distracting during the day. One way that I have found, aside from silencing notifications, is to go into the accessibility settings. I specifically have iOS, but I'm sure Android and Google phones have other capabilities. But I go into my accessibility settings and go to the display and the color scheme and set the whole thing to grayscale. I have found that this limits the amount of vibrancy that is on the screen.

• 44:01Speaker 06

  I'm not as inclined to want to watch videos or look at pictures because they're just not as eye grabbing and they don't hold my attention for as long. It also makes things like shopping more difficult because you can't see what things truly look like and what the color and what they'll be like in real life. And so it requires me, it adds a forcing function and a point of friction for me to go to a computer or go into the store to see things in real life. So I hope other people find value in that. Thanks.

• 44:29Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Curran, I love the idea of making your phone more boring to make it more useful. Because the truth behind the, our technology is amazing, but the truth behind it is that your technology is useless if it's using you. And one of the ways that it uses you is it makes, it becomes more enticing, it becomes more enticing than the things that are important to us. And then it feels urgent, right? And so I love the spirit of this, this isn't a renunciation of technology, although I mean, I find that appealing sometimes. I look at the way the Amish live and are they renouncing technology? I think that's up for debate. I would argue that they're not because there's something super intentional about the way

• 45:13Joshua Fields Millburn?

  that they use technology. In fact, later on in this episode, we have this Christopher Walken quote, he talks about the technology he doesn't live with, or he doesn't use in his own life, and there's no spirit of renunciation there, it's that he finds it More appropriate to omit those things from his life. The same way that I find it more appropriate for me to not have advertisements on this show. I find it more appropriate for me to not smoke cigarettes. I find it more appropriate for me to not eat pizza because of the cost behind many of those things. I know when we walked away from social media, it wasn't about renouncing social media. I think that is a rather immature way to look at things.

• 45:57Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Renunciation is often done out of dismissal. And when we're just simply dismissing something, we don't have a good reason as to why we're dismissing it. We just, we label it as bad and we're not sure why it's bad. Then that's when we begin to get defined by it. So before we wrap up this segment here, TK, any words on, on that spirit of dismissal and ah, that's, you know, that, that, that sense that I'm going to renounce this just because I don't want to deal with it. I'm not mature enough to try to find a way to, to incorporate this into my life in a healthy way.

• 46:35Speaker 04

  It can be a great starting point if you can separate it from the self righteousness that often accompanies it, right? And if you can sort of be composed about it and say, I'm not in a place where I can handle having this around, whether it be my phone or my, my computer or my TV or cigarettes or something like that. I just can't handle having it around. I think that's self honesty, right? That's you saying, I know what my limitations are. And if you can be composed about that and, and, and not overdo it in terms of like, look at those people over there doing it. Look at these ads over here everywhere. That's not helping.

• 47:19Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Right.

• 47:20Speaker 04

  You know, that just attaches you to it all the more. And so, so separate the preoccupation from it, from the prioritization of your freedom. That's what I would say about it.

• 47:28Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, yeah. And what you're talking about, the limitations, sometimes it's about us setting up our own limitations. When I didn't have home internet for, I think it was five years, I wasn't renouncing the internet. It was a particular boundary I set up in my own life because I knew that the pull of that was distracting me from the things that were more important to me. And I began to understand what was important to me and added some additional friction. And at some point, because I had a family, or I got a family, and then they wanted more access to the internet, I had to find ways that worked better for me within that new context. And the same thing was true when I didn't

• 48:09Joshua Fields Millburn?

  purchase things for a year. It was about re-establishing some boundaries that worked for me, as opposed to saying, "Oh, buying stuff is bad." Or when we left social media last year, "Social media is bad." I don't think social media is immoral, but I think that it can get in the way. It can use us in ways. And sometimes, the best boundary might mean to walk away from it altogether. We'll talk about Christopher Walken here in a bit, and how he doesn't use social media, he doesn't use the internet at home, he doesn't use a bunch of other things. For anyone else has a list or tip or insight about this episode, just like Curran, let us know. You can send us a voice memo, [email protected]. We'd love to hear from you. We'd love to feature your voice on the show. Up next, page

• 48:53Joshua Fields Millburn?

  two and page three. But first, let's take a quick pandiculation break. We'll be right back. All right, that's the first 32% of episode 483. We'll see you on Patreon for the full maximal edition, which includes answers to a bunch more questions. Questions like, "When is it appropriate for someone to start calling themselves a minimalist?" And "How do the minimalist take criticism so well?" And "How can I be an informed citizen if I'm overwhelmed and worried by the news media?" Plus, we have a million more questions and simple living segments over on the Minimalist Private Podcast on Patreon. And that is our minimal episode for today. Big thanks to Earthing Studios for the recording space.

• 49:38Joshua Fields Millburn?

  On behalf of Ryan Nicodemus, TK Coleman, Mal Alabama, post-production Peter, Spire Jeff, and Spire Dave, Savvy D on the board, and the rest of our team, I'm Joshua Fields Milburn. If you leave here with just one message, it's about to be this: Love people and use things. Because the opposite never works. Thanks for listening, y'all.

• 50:00Speaker 00

  We'll see you next time.

• 50:01Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Peace.

• 50:03Speaker 00

  Every little thing you think that you need. Every little thing you think that you need. Every little thing that's just feeding your greed. Oh, I bet that you'd be fine without it.