On January 25, 2011 many twitter followers of @evbogue saw this:
@evbogue Everett Bogue
I clicked through.
I read it.
I was slightly upset, slightly angry, slightly confused.
Then I went about my daily life and occasionally thought about what he wrote.
It was then that it made sense to me. (Perhaps that was his plan all along?) What he’s really stating is that he’s breaking up with us. It’s the old “it’s not you, it’s me” speech.
Everett IS a minimalist. He and a half dozen other bloggers are really the ones that I started absorbing when I stopped trying to kinda, sorta get rid of some stuff and really turned the minimalist engine on full and went about changing my life. What’s really going on here is akin to a teacher saying “I’ve given you my all, shared all my knowledge with you about this subject and now it’s time for you to go one way and I’ll go another. If you should decide that you still want me to be your teacher then buckle in. To quote Doc Brown in Back to the Future: “roads? where we’re going there are no roads.”
I’m a minimalist. I’m a minimalist with a bunch of junk that I’m still wading through. I’ll get there. I’m on my way, I know the path, I see the light and I just have to keep taking steps to get there. So will you.
I’ve noticed a phenomenon in the minimalist world recently that I’ve seen a few times before. I saw it in myself a few years ago in a hobby I was very invested in and it really gets to be ridiculous. You’ve seen it too, you see it every day, in magazines, on TV, especially on shit shows like Entertainment Tonight.
Hero worship.
Face it, I have. I’ve no issues being up front declaring that Everett and the other top minimalist bloggers were/are heroes to me. It’s cool, we all need them. I didn’t go around with a W.W.E.D. bracelet on or anything but I read his and others’ stuff and, for a while there, took it as gospel.
This is the way, there is no other.
Bullshit. There are a ton of ways to become a minimalist. Be inspired by these people but don’t grovel at the twitter feed of another person expecting them to lead you like a damn puppy.
I feel the real message that Everett wanted to get across was this:
I’m done. I was a minimalist but now I’ve evolved past being a minimalist to the point that I’m now just me, Everett. I’m taking a new path, looking towards a new frontier. Talk to me and converse with me all you want, but not about minimalism. I’m not a minimalist anymore, I’m me, Everett Bogue.
So now what? who knows? I’m pretty sure the sun will still rise tomorrow even though Everett’s not there to offer pearls of clutter-free wisdom. Someone else will step to the forefront, maybe they already have and we just haven’t bothered to notice them yet.
Does a college close down when the professors die or retire? Of course not, the college finds new people to teach and sometimes they are former students of the professors they are replacing.
We are former students and he’s now a former teacher.
Well, your take on this situation was much more civil than mine was. I appreciate your analogy of a retired teacher, maybe that is a better way to look at this situation. The thing that made me so angry was his new site, but now that I’ve had my say I feel much better about the whole thing. (And I have met a lot of like-minded people in the process! I look forward to looking through your blog.)
Adam
Thanks for stopping by and for commenting too. I wouldn’t be surprised if that post was the only thing that ever gets seen on that particular domain name. I think it was his way of making a big bold statement…and it evidently worked really well
I don’t agree. When he talks about “exploring/supporting the future of human and technological evolution”, that’s not a statement that translates to “you go one way, I’ll go another”.
When Everett states in various places that his physical/digital self is “rapidly evolving”, the implication is clear – he feels that *he* is becoming a superior being of some sort. His current message is basically “follow me or be left in the dust.”
That’s the thing with Everett – there is no valid “other way” in his mind. It’s all or nothing. It wasn’t “consider throwing away your TV”, it was “destroy your television”.
One of the best examples of this is this quote:
“For example, sometimes I see people arguing that cars are necessary to human life, even though for millions of years we didn’t have cars and millions of people do just fine without them. It just doesn’t make sense to debate that any longer, these people need to sell their cars and start making the world a better place to live in — they’re just afraid to do it, or aren’t making the easy choice to move to a walkable city.”
He ignores anybody who lives in a rural area for a valid reason (farmers, for example), ignores the fact that before we had cars we had horses, buggies, wagons, chariots, etc. The options throughout history weren’t “walk or drive”. But because he has to be able to reinforce his uninformed, absolute opinion, he reduces it to two choices and labels those who disagree with him as “afraid” or “unwilling to make an easy choice.”
It doesn’t matter that Everett still watched TV on his MacBook (Dexter, which he paid for from the iTunes store); it doesn’t matter that Everett still drives (he rents a ZipCar when he needs one); it doesn’t matter that although he was “deeply troubled” by the fuel usage and environmental impact involved in air travel (can’t cite the source, because he conveniently deleted his old comments – but it was in the comments for the post about the Gulf oil spill) he just got in a plane not that long ago and took half a dozen flights around the U.S. to meet up with other bloggers.
Everything with Everett is about absolutes, even when it’s in complete defiance of logic and reason. He speaks, he considers his word to be supreme, and he expects you to listen. If you won’t, you can take a hike.
That all being said, I agree with you that minimalism will move on, without Everett. I’m personally hoping that we can stop talking about cyborgs and yogis and all that stuff and get back to actually spreading this movement!
In any community of people, be they baseball card collectors, church groups, city councils or minimalists there are always going to be -and better be- dissenting opinons about things. Many think these people are pains in the ass, and they may be. There’s no way that a growing community of minimalists is ever going to all feel the same way. Everett garnered a lot of attention because he was early and made a lot of sense and provided minimalism with a face and a name. There may be plenty of other ways he could have quit, but he did it his way and how can you argue with that.
Yes! I could never get into his more philosophical topics. I’m more for what I would call ‘practical minimalism’ — practices that I can absorb into my everyday lifestyle, how to decide what I need and learning to be content.
Jessica
I completely agree with your stance. Let’s take minimalism to the next level. I’m blogging about living a life from the ground up. It’s rooted in simplicity and stripping myself down to the bare minimum in order to rebuild a life, a physical, real, life, that is meaningful. I’m not just looking at the outside I’m also looking at the mind, soul and emotion. As you probably expect, minimalism is a strong part of my writing but only because of the walk I have taken. The more I understand about myself the more I want to simplify myself in order to clear away the dross.
For Everett, the crap he ended up burning away led him down a totally different road than I am on. So, now I must put him in a different category and watch him from beyond a divide like he’s an outsider. It’s weird and evbogue’s uniqueness to the community will surely be missed.
-Kevin
Ground Up Life . com
I was really confused when I found saw that tweet yesterday, but didn’t have time to really investigate it until this morning.
I’m not sure of my feelings, really. I wholeheartedly agree with you about passing on the torch to a new generation of minimalism teachers. Now I just wish I had found Everett’s blog earlier than I did.
Jessica
Yeah Jessica, he ignited a small firestorm yesterday that’s for sure. His stuff is good, but there’s only so much I can read before I have to log off and go look at something that seems more applicable to MY life like Dave Bruno or Joshua Becker. Single young Everett’s points don’t always hit home with closer to middle aged, married with kids me.
I do agree with that. I’m not Everett either – married, no kids, and we both work office jobs in automotive. I don’t need to be location independent. I just want a life with simple things, a nice (small) home, and a garden to tinker around in.
Well, I don’t know who Everett is, but I just found your blog and I like it. I think the problem here is what you have adeptly described as the need for heroes. But what I see in this minimalist bloggers trend is that everybody does it their own way. I don’t really need anybody to tell me how to be a minimalist or what that even means. I use the label because it makes things easier to explain. To me this all seems like a typical publicity stunt, there’s too many minimalists now so it’s not cool anymore. So how do you get attention? You piss all of the minimalists off. Anyway, I could be totally wrong since I don’t know who Everett is except for what you’ve explained in this post. I’ll be checking out your other entries, however, as I find them rather inspiring. Cheers!
Thanks Sergio, it’s nice to be thought of as inspiring, makes me feel good
There are indeed a lot of minimalist blogs out there, some get noticed, some don’t. Mine was hovering under the radar…until today that is, it’s been a very busy day here on SBC. I don’t need anyone to tell me how to be a minimalist either. I started this blog as a form of journaling actually, just a way to keep myself accountable for what I was doing during the process of getting rid of junk. I did need a minimalist teacher in the beginning, I was frustrated looking at the goal but unsure of how I was going to get there. It was at that time that I really needed to read stuff from people that had already “been there, done that” to see what they did, how they did it and how they feel now. I don’t need that type of blog anymore. I’m now at the stage where I get going in the morning looking for things to do to get me to my goal. So, maybe that now means that I start looking to other minimalist bloggers for inspiration on how to live as a minimalist instead of how to become one.
Anyway, it’s an adventure that’s for sure, thanks for stopping by!
I have never really followed E.V. I have nothing against but at the same time have nothing for him, so to speak. I don’t even know him. I have read a few of his musings. We are friends on Facebook (in the very loose sense of the word). We have mutual acquaintances. But I have always felt like he was on his own path and couldn’t care less about those that were not willing to take that path as well. But that is cool. No one made me read his blog. No makes me read this blog. Heck, no one is even making me give up my clothes or my car or anything like that. I take from the minimalist movement what many take from the Bible; what is convenient to my current life! Two weeks back I wrote a status update on my Facebook that said, “I live on a farm. I have a beat up old pickup truck. I sometimes crave crappy, greasy food. I am 15 pounds overweight. I can’t fit my wife and I’s belongings into just one bag. I don’t call an airport “home for now.” I am not into yoga. I don’t meditate. But I sleep well. I am happy. I am comfortable with who I am.”
It was so freeing to say that out loud. It was me saying I am not this or that or here or there. I am a few of all of those things. I am not in transition because -and, quite frankly – I don’t want to get “there.” I don’t want to start at Point A and one day be sitting, lotus style, at Point B.
I like you, man.
You know I like you. HAHAHAHAHA. Okay, this is getting weird now.
Maybe you could sit lotus style and eat crappy greasy food while in the back of your pickup truck Andrew
Thanks for stopping by and for leaving a rare comment. I like your take on things. It really should be about what makes each of us happy. And you know what? there are people that have houses full of stuff and they really are happy. We are each entitled to lead the life we choose…well, provided our wives let us I suppose 
If I could get some fried okra in my belly and not be hindered by downward dog I would do it. Seriously though, I am not mocking those who have found tremendous peace in yoga. It just doesn’t interest me. But then again sitting in the middle of a field on hot, sunny, day and singing songs of praise may not interest others. To each their own. That is what will continue to shape us as a dynamic community. We have to accept that it is about the journey and not the destination and all of us have different strides.
You are right about the wives though. I remember an old comedian whose punchline was, “If momma’s happy then everyone’s happy.” hahahahah!
Yep, if the wife’s happy we’re all happy, we live by that here too. Sometimes tho I think of Henny Youngman.
Well, it’s all a matter of perspective… I’m gay and I’m not allowed to marry and I’ll certainly never have a wife… I think this whole thing comes down to perspective and individual circumstance. People have different opinions because things effect people in different ways based on their circumstance, and you can’t apply one person’s rule to everybody else… that is why this comment thread is full of such differing and contrasting perspectives.
I too was hugely involved in Hero worship for a long time. The A-Team of minimalist bloggers were my heroes. Shit, they still are. I love reading their old blog posts and applying what they said to my life. It’s been one hell of a ride.
But all things must come to an end somehow. I’ve grown beyond them. I’ve learned, like you said, and I’m no longer a student. I know how to be a minimalist, I practice minimalism. I am a minimalist.
I’ve felt this minimalist shake-up coming for a while now, even on my own blog before Everett posted this I was thinking. “So what else is there?” “What else could I possibly say about minimalism?” I think Everett is right about minimalism, there’s not much that’s new to say, but that doesn’t mean that we minimalists shouldn’t act as a resource for those who have, so far, missed out on the fantastic web-party of people who want to live with less. There’s a reason more minimalist blogs start up every month, and it’s because more people are trying to adapt their lifestyles and forge a like-minded community around them. I say, don’t “Fuck Minimalism.” I say, “Use minimalism.” We former students should act as the new teachers in this phase of the revolution. Our teachers seemed like pioneers to us, but I’m sure most of us have had way different experiences with the movement than they had and we can use their mistakes as well as our own to advise others who want to join in.
Minimalism is just a part to our whole being – we have to figure out the rest.
I absolutely agree Carwin. There are tons of people in America that aren’t happy with how they are living and are looking for something to come along to change things but they haven’t yet heard of minimalist living. Somebody has to be around for them to learn from, why not us? I suppose we newer bloggers are sorta the second generation of minimalist bloggers, the freshmen who are now juniors. There are lots of people that are going to pick up Dave Bruno’s book The 100 Thing Challenge and -after they read that awesome book- are going to hit the web looking for content.
When Ev talks about how all the applicable books have been written, I kinda think he’s right. It’s a good thing that The 100 Thing Challenge is a really great book because after that, there really can’t be another successful minimalist “real paper” book. Thanks for the comment and stopping by!
I’m glad Everett is moving on. Despite what he thought, Everett wasn’t a good teacher, a particularly good writer, or a solid example of someone who lives their life simply. Everett was and is a self-centered, arrogant person who tried to ride the gravy train that he thought was minimalism. Case in point: every post that began with “This post is going to go viral.” They stopped going viral and now you get to see the real Everett.
But, you can’t say he’s not an original
Thanks for stopping by.
Well said! I have only just discovered this mystical world of minimalism blogs actually, and have been writing a little about it in my own blog. I haven’t read much of Everett’s main blog, but I did read what he had to say on fuckminimalism.com. He seems like nothing more than a pretentious twat to me. This is what I think about him, actually. I’m not sure how to link to my own blog without making it look like I want everybody to scramble over. Which of course, I do. But er, anyway! I hope people will stop by!
That’s exactly how we all link to our blogs in a comment actually
Hilarious cartoon in minimalism… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_ASIV2TvOg&feature=player_embedded
P.S. The ending is BEST!!!
“Who would make your iPhones then?”
“The third world, they are already minimalists.”
Bahahahah!
Brilliant.
yeah, that is pretty cool
What’s also cool is that the website used to create that cartoon can be used by anyone to make cartoons, for just a few bucks.
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Interesting take on what is happening with the EB camp. My post about it is below.
Mark
http://minimalistlifestyle.wordpress.com/2011/01/27/fickle-minimalists/
I say Leo is a teacher, if he was ever considering himself to be one. I connected with his posts, and I cannot lie and say I ever read Everett’s blog consistently. I read a couple of posts here and there, but he isn’t my style (obviously), so I just stopped.
So he was never my teacher. In fact, some part of me wonders if he’s doing this because for him minimalism was just a fad, and that kind of ‘fast food’ fad is not the kind of lifestyle I subscribe to. I’m in it for the long haul.
I understand his point and the one you pointed out in a much nicer manner, but let’s be clear that he was never my leader or my teacher. You have to want to accept to become a student before someone can lead you.
I led myself, and became a minimalist in 2006, only started talking about it a little in 2009.
I’ll just keep doing what I want to do, traveling as I see fit, settling down somewhat once I have kids (but not buying a home) and doing whatever I want to do no matter what anyone says. So even if I am going to be slammed for being a ‘flash in a pan’ with ‘pornographic pictures of my life’ all over my blog, I don’t really care.
No one dictates my life for me.
Well said
I still feel like a bit of a novice with all the “reading of minimalist bloggers” thing. I’m still deciding who really represents views and ideas with whom I identify. I often found myself reading other people’s articles in my reader before I looked at Everett’s stuff so I guess it must not have spoken too loudly to me. I did tho get a lot out of his Art of Being a Minimalist book. It was the first minimalist ebook I read and it was a vaulable thing for me to read at the time.
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