discovering minimalism, pt 1

29/01/2021

I first discovered the concept of minimalism back in 2018. It was a different time, in more ways than one. I've started thinking about my life using terms like "pre-covid" and "post-covid," as if it's comparable to the birth of Christ. A bold comparison, I'm aware, but the Coronavirus lockdown has seen me go through a few major paradigm shifts. My view on money changed dramatically. I was always budget-savvy on some level, in that I always knew how much I was spending. My issue really was that I found myself able to justify almost anything. Bar tabs, eating out, amazon purchases, an entire holiday. All of these were things I've thrown onto a credit card before, leaving it a problem for future me to solve.

Compounding this, I was a 20-year-old working professional who still lived at home. Besides digs and getting myself to work, I had little in the way of out-goings at this point in my life. At first, it was great. I started working at 17-years-old and was suddenly earning more money than I knew what to do with. But eventually, lifestyle inflation kicked in. I quickly became accustomed to having plenty of disposable income. I was saving a little each month for various things, but rather than seeing how much more I could save, I treated the rest as fair game to spend however I wanted. In hindsight, I've no idea where all that money even went! My first couple of pay rises didn't help either. I simply saw this as an opportunity to start spending even more money, making my problems worse.

Of course, living at home came with its own set of complications. A group of four now-adults, all under the same roof and sharing resources, but with vastly different, often colliding ideals, values and opinions. There were a lot of screaming matches between myself and my parents in my early adulthood. Like any kid, I was clawing at the bubblewrap I was being smothered in. And like any kid, I'd eventually burst through that bubble wrap to realise it was the very thing helping to keep me afloat in the vast seas of the real world. Staying afloat is a privilege which is guaranteed to no-one. The reality was that I had a roof over my head every night and never had to worry about where the next meal was coming from. I never appreciated that until I found myself out on my own and treading water for myself. I was far too preoccupied to appreciate that. I was so fucking busy. Busy with work, volunteering and clubbing; kidding myself on at the gym and trying to live as vegetarian as I could in what was, at the time, very much a 'you'll eat what you are given' type household. In other words, simplifying my life was not on the agenda. My comprehension of adulthood was that adults are stressed, busy and drive a BMW. So that template was the one which I was blindly sketching from, following a well-trodden path that leads to a discontent that you can't quite put your finger on.

Then in July of that same year, there started a coming of age period of slow growth in my life, where for about a year or so I was slowly getting to grips with myself, my finances and what actually makes me happy. It started with an 8-day trip to London. Five of those days were spent at Scout Adventures Gilwell Park in Chingford. From the moment I left the house on Sunday morning, I was living out of a rucksack. After 7 hours, travelling 395 miles by rail, we finally arrived in London. We were still 11 or so miles away from Gilwell, but it was only 3 PM and we hadn't really eaten since 8 AM. So we jumped into the busiest McDonald's I've ever seen on Euston Road, just outside Kings Cross St Pancreas, where we stayed for 40 minutes. I remember getting a latte and a Fanta Orange with my meal, what with me being so tired and warm! The heat in the capital that summer was no joke. From there we took the underground to Walthamstow Central, then an overground train to Chingford and a 5-minute Uber to the site. By the time we arrived we were still an hour early. We made our introductions and were directed to our camp site for the week, where we pitched our tents and made ourselves comfortable. I stepped outside to quickly change. I'd been in my travel clothes all day and was, let's say, claggy. Ross was still unpacking and the tent was already stiflingly hot, so changing in there simply wasn't an option. Anyone that knows me will atest to how body shy I actually am in real life (despite how it may look on Instagram) so for changing out in the open to be a preferable option is testament to how bloody warm it really was! As I was pulling a fresh t-shirt over my head, I heard Ross from inside the tent go, "Aw, shite!" His head popped out the tent to relay his discovery. We were told that Lunches and Dinners would be provided for us, but Breakfasts and anything else we wanted during the day we'd need to bring with us. Well, in our haste to grab a bite to eat and make it to the underground, we forgot all about that! So we were back in an Uber to a Tesco Metro in Chingford. What a palaver, let me tell you! Sitting in the back of our final Uber back to the camp site, I remember agreeing that we should have just drove! It would have been much more convenient and, with all the Uber rides we took that week, it would probably have been cheaper too!

For the following five days, from 9 am till around 6 pm, we were volunteering around the camp grounds. They were running their usual activities programme, while also setting up for their annual event called Gilwell 24. A good amount of our time was spent building things, marquees, fences, tents, hammock stands, all sorts. We did a good amount of manual labour, more than I've ever done in my life in fact, as we lifted and shifted things from one side of the massive site to another. We also helped run some activities, mainly Archery and Climbing, although really we were just helpful hamsters!

We spent most of our time with the international volunteers, a team of 20 or so people from all around the world, who come to Gilwell at all times of the year to volunteer their time to help run the site. In exchange, they are provided accommodation, meals and pocket money for the duration of their stay, as well as off days they can spend however they like. The atmosphere was amazing, unlike anything else I've ever experienced. For some, this is how they spend nine years of their lives. From the ages of 16 to 25, Gilwell and other scout sites all around the world open their doors to international volunteers, all offering the same type of deal. It's a lifestyle that I simply didn't know existed until then and, in honesty, had I found out about this when I was 16 there's a good chance I'd have signed up. Some even had the cost of their flight paid for them because they were that experienced! One or two of the volunteers had been in Kandersteg for a while before coming to Gilwell and got a right buzz out of telling us all about it. After all, we were due to head out there in just a few weeks time. We met people from all over the place,  Wales and England, as well as Brazil, South Africa and Spain and had the best five days of my life so far. I'm aware that might sound strange, of course. A week of manual labour, are you crazy? But you know that way when you're not expecting something to be as good as it turns out to be? Yeah, it was like that, which just made it all the better. 

Come Friday afternoon as things were wrapping up, I didn't want to leave! We managed to hitch a ride with some new friends back to Chingford, five of us plus five huge kit bags all rammed into one small car. It would have been weird if that were how we started our week together, but by the end it was a good laugh! At the station, we exchanged hugs, added each other on Facebook and parted ways. We were on our way to find Gary, who was due to arrive in the city any minute. We met on Shoreditch High Street and took a walk down Spitalfields to find our AirBnB, where we stayed the weekend. We went for breakfast, took a walk around a few museums; went shopping, then out for dinner and drinks and before I knew it we were in Kings Cross again. 

It was a Sunday night and we were stood amongst businesspeople who were obviously travelling for work the next day. We stood like zombies, absolutely knackered, staring up at the board waiting for the platform number to be announced. When it was, suddenly it was like a scene from a zombie movie. The hoards piled in the direction of the platform, sweeping up Ross, Gary and myself with them. It was craaaazy. It's understandable, of course. It was probably one of the last trains to leave London that day, so making it was important. I can't speak for the other two, but I didn't share their worry. I'd have been quite happy to stay another day, still reluctant to let the week come to an end.

By some way of a miracle, we managed to snag a block of two abreast seats with a table in between. We had our bags tucked away and a gin and tonic poured before the train even pulled away from the platform! The sun was setting on one of the best weeks of my life so far, our collective phone battery percentage was dwindling and I was having to fight sleep harder and harder as the darkening, blue-black landscape of night beyond our cabin window began to move, faster and faster, as the train left the city. But I was feeling strange, a sense of calm, gratefulness and fullness that I hadn't experienced in the longest time. I fell asleep shortly after, listening to my two friends blether away, completely and utterly content, with nowhere else I'd rather be.

~ Aedan.