Minimalism is not Simplicity

It’s all about avoiding extremes.

We think simplicity is a better term to define what we offer and sell
at jjrsliving.com. We think it conveys our philosophy better than
minimalism. This is typically conveyed and understood better in Asian
cultures than the West so pardon us for trying to hammer it again.

Minimalism after all is an extreme, and we don’t like extremes.
Extremes are for a lack of a better term, self limiting. Think about
it, if you are at the end of a spectrum, the only other direction to
move about is backwards. But if you are at anywhere between either
ends of extremes, you have much leeway because you can move in either
directions. Simplicity is like the latter, while minimalism is akin to
the former.

Simplicity is however, we think is more difficult to achieve than
minimalism. Extremes have a clear and concise definition, but
simplicity doesn’t. One cannot define an absolute definition for
simplicity other than say it means something is “simple”, but other
than that it is hard to concretely describe what it actually is. It’s
ironic, because we are lead to believe that minimalism is a type of
life philosophy, when simplicity is probably more philosophical and
abstract than minimalism, which is actually more absolute. As an
example you will find it difficult to call somebody who lives in a
gigantic villa a minimalist but you could use simplicity to describe
them however under certain circumstances. For instance they may live in a gigantic villa but maybe they live a pretty simple life andtherefore you can say they embrace simplicity, but even then it wouldbe hard to call them a minimalist because their villa immediately fitsoutside the bill. Interesting isn’t it???

Why is simplicity harder to achieve than minimalism? It is not solely
because simplicity is hard to define. It is because it is hard to
define and yet you can tell if something or someone is simple or not.
These two opposing situations seem to occur at the same time. The
phenomenon and physicalities are clearly there but it is not easy to
ascribe whether something fits the simplicity framework, and yet we
somehow know from a gut feeling if something is or isn’t, but we
cannot put a definite parameter to it. It feels as if we are going in
circles but this is what we are trying to convey.

Simplicity is therefore, something akin to an acquired taste. It takes
time to nurture and develop, not something like minimalism which you
can do immediately because the definition is clearly defined(throw
away everything, down-size as far as possible, etc etc). So what we
sell is to help you achieve simplicity in your life starting from the
things that you use everyday. Is it the absolute answer? No of course
not. But from things you can simplify on a day to day basis maybe you
will gradually understand for yourself what simplicity FEELS like.

Thanks for reading!