I view ‘extreme’ Minimalism as branding or a deliberate way to differentiate what would have been just ‘minimalist lifestyle’ 10 or so years ago against what is a heavily commercialised trend now.

The benefits are basically what is normally espoused about a minimalist life: clarity, mindful living, better financial management, flow, agility, and peacefulness.

It is a mindset largely. I own m more a backpacks worth of stuff, although what I own is valued, used, and maintainable.

I disagree. “Extreme” minimalism is by far the most lucrative, if you’re someone in my position. It’s an 80/20 thing - the first 80% of the climb gets you only 20% of the benefits. It’s not about “how little you can do with” or “perseverance” or the stuff at all, I think that’s really a misconception.

When you get to the point where all of your shit is in a backpack or you eat only whole foods or you have exactly 100 items or whatever, you start to really FEEL the impact of having more financial resources, having more geographical freedom, having more time, and being less psychologically tied down. You feel stupid for living in such a big house, or for going to McDonalds every week, or for spending every Saturday on Netflix, or for never bothering to apply for other jobs, and you get pissed at your past self for all of that waste, but that “wtf do I do now” is where things get interesting.

You get to this point where you’re… I dunno, bored I guess? because all of those meaningless placeholders in your life are gone, and you genuinely don’t want them back, so you start to delve into things that have always been lingering in the back of your mind, and all of a sudden they actually start to happen and gain momentum. You also start to trust yourself a lot more and are more comfortable being unconventional because hey, it got you this far. People go in different directions from there - the travel/digital nomad/move to NYC thing is a commonly discussed route, but I don’t think that’s everyone. The only overarching sentiment in those subcommunities is “this is MY life, it’s all the things I personally dreamed of, and I’m in control of it”. Not perfect by any stretch, but satisfying and unwasted.

Most people who get into minimalism never go further than throwing out some stuff and getting some food for thought. They have a new awareness surrounding frivolous spending and the excesses of life, but that’s about it. That has some value, but it only just skims the surface of the larger “minimalism” iceberg, which at its core is just a tool to combat risk aversion and to encourage people to actually take some risks and try to live their best life. Most people regret what they didn’t do because they prioritized comfort and convenience and familiarity, because our brains are built to be more risk averse than is optimal in modern society.

Granted, I think everyone sits on a spectrum of how open they are to change and how much they crave new experiences and “richness”, as it were (in psychology it falls under “openness”). I think that dictates, to a large degree, whether people find minimalism appealing and are receptive to it. BUT I did find it a bit insulting when would people just write it off as “fitting everything in a backpack cuz you can” or “stupid” or even “just doing it for clicks”, because fuck them, how would they know? As with so many things, a subset of that comes from a place of resentment or regret or jealousy.

Also, unfortunately, a lot of people don’t feel stuck, they ARE stuck. They come to minimalism to try to escape from something inescapable. That comes from things like being in poverty, having children that you didn’t want, being in debt, being physically sick, and any number of other things. For those people… yeah, you can pare down to a backpack and that won’t get rid of anything. Minimalism is great, but life isn’t a Hollywood movie, and not everyone has a happy beginning, middle, or end. Minimalism can help you take a risk, but it can’t fix you.