Moderate Minimalism

I am Ersin Çine from İzmir, Türkiye. I learn, teach and research in a university in order to feed my mind and stomach.

This short list is a reminder for myself and perhaps a call for you:

  1. The rule of moderate minimalism: Less is more but excessively less is excessively less. This rule applies to virtually everything in life. Avoid extremes. Consider doing nearly uniform dressing, mild intermittent fasting, casual vegetarianism, non-exercise physical activities, etc.
  2. Playing well is important but winning the game is not: Things that you can't control should not make you much sad or happy. This kind of happiness is a false sense anyway. Moreover, don't consume your motivation for things that won't matter in a couple of years.
  3. Aim for being somebody rather than having something. You can be complete regardless of how much you accumulate. Decide who you want to be wisely. Being a "good" person is better than being a "different" person (Being good may sometimes be boring but hey boring is the new cool!). Open-mindedness is the key to converge the best version of you. Create spare times to read, travel, talk and think in order to gain diverse perspectives.
  4. Only living in the moment is suboptimal. However, investing is never-ending. Find the balance. Generally, seek meaning over immediate pleasures (This, of course, doesn't prevent you from enjoying small things. Dopamine is a limited resource and returns are diminished anyway.). Spend a part of your each resource including time, energy and money as if it is the last year of your life.
  5. Be responsible. You actions may currently affect a small neighborhood but they may also greatly affect billions of people who will potentially live in the following millions of years. Although your life span is negligibly short relative to the life span of humans, you live in an important time period in which it is possible for humanity to even become extinct. Moreover, time is a great multiplier for the snowball effect.
  6. Maybe maximize the money you make, but also minimize the money you will have when you die. Obviously, the money can be used more efficiently both for yourself and for others when you are still alive! (Yes, the time of death is uncertain, but come on: optimization can deal with probabilities. By the way, your guide must be expected utilities rather than expected values. Otherwise, with numbers it is easy to fool the analytical minds.)