Feb. 11, 2025 | Demir Antay

Choosing Minimalism As A Defense

Why am I dedicating myself fully to minimalism? First of all, I am tired of chasing and searching for meaning and purpose in Ikea catalogs.

Second of all, there is no alternative to it.

We are being forced into it. Income inequality, the loss and destruction of old societal habits, and human-based systems are collapsing in real-time.

So as with everything, I was searching for an alternative path so that I don’t get crushed in this unequal system designed to keep people as wage workers.
It is not just about money, it is about my soul as well.

What do I mean by a defense mechanism?

So everything in this life in my opinion is in either attack mode or defense mode.

You can call it whatever you want yin-yang, wu-wei, push-pull, build-maintain. But in essence, the energy is either the aggressor or the defender.

So how does this even connect to my idea above? I have been trying to earn money in this life since I was a kid (18-19) and I have been struggling.

Up until the pandemic I was making money that helped me sustain my life but after the pandemic and after the start of the tech layoffs in 2022 it is nearly impossible to earn a living from service-based jobs.

The middle class has disappeared.

After printing money like crazy in the 2008 housing crisis and the 2020 pandemic, those two events have nailed the coffin for the middle class.

And when the middle class gets disappears all the services disappear as well. So no small-to-mid businesses hire your services and skills anymore.

You cannot sell to low-income earners because even a simple Spotify or Netflix subscription is a bit much on their budget (which is perfectly logical, I am not bashing them, I am a low-income earner, and I ain’t swinging 20 bucks for music a month).

But that leaves you as a person who just sits at home, not being able to buy even a coffee latte because it became 7$ and add that muffin too and you are looking at 10-12$.

So I don’t want this writing to be a rant-cry wall of text.

How does this ranted part get connected to the attack-defense, wu-wei, yin-yang type of thinking?

Well, life and human-made systems are “aggressively” expanding into my life. So I gotta “defend” and also “attack” with a plan.

Because otherwise, I am just waiting for someone to come and save me, which is the last thing that will happen.

Unfortunately, that has been my experience. And it is a shared one.

So what am I implementing right now, you can find them listed below:

Steps that I am taking:

• First of all, I am setting up a minimalistic budget that covers my main key areas of life and basic needs.
  So all of my basic needs in Maslow's hierarchy of needs are divided into 3 categories - food, transportation, and shelter amounting to 1500-2000$ a month.
  Which is not that high amount, to be honest with you.
  And I created a system where, all I need like clothes and health stuff like a 1.5L bottle, an electric toothbrush, and work stuff like a laptop amounts to 3k in total.
  So if I can generate 3k in total and 1.5k a month, I can live wherever I want.
  I do not need to introduce new things to my life. I will expand more on this system in another post.
• I am thinking about leaving big cities, so far I have lived all my life in Istanbul and I had a brief living experience in Paris.
  What is the point?
  Really, crime, trash, building on top of buildings, all of the high prices, and for what?
  Exactly what? What is the point?
  Just so that I can drink an overpriced coffee in a shop with people who have their headphones in and go to bars/clubs with people I do not share anything other than the fact that we all live in the same city.
  All of that with the addition that rent prices are more than 2k a month in every big city, makes my minimal framework of 1.5-2k for the all duration of the month obsolete. So no thank you.
  I am not gonna go live in a forest, but I am definitely scaling back from megacities.
• I am also starting practicing no-buy year.
  Firstly, I don’t have a lot of money at the moment so it makes a lot of sense to use this mental minimalism practice to not get things into my life.
  I will only buy basic needs like food, shelter, yearly basic clothes from retailers, and savings for the health budget.
  That’s it.
  I don’t wanna feel like a little schmuck who just falls for every little marketing trick, I am done.

• Well, everything is gig-based now so I am turning to a gig-based economy where I will only look for freelance contracts or create indie apps every day so that I can generate a monthly cash flow.

  If the 9-5 life is collapsing and that collapse is overdue, I don’t wanna wait with my hands in my pocket constantly getting rejected from LinkedIn.

Anyway, this is it for this week's writing, if you wanna follow along my journey/creativity, you can drop a follow or visit my site to see if you like any of the apps that I have created among many other things.

I will be documenting my progress from now on.

Use the information above as you will.

Thanks for reading.

Demir