How far does my minimalism go?

Title is the question I have started asking myself ever since the Mac crashed through my front window (not literally). I had a good night's sleep on my last blog and while I'm not especially angry (I never get angry, really) I'm still a little bit unsure about the future.

Really, what does make me happy? What keeps me getting up every morning? And how far am I going to take my minimalism?

I can tell you the answer to that, at least. It's my friends, and it's my sense of academic adventure. Gosh that sounds cheesy, so let me rephrase that: It's how the world has so much for me to explore and try and do, and I want to go chase these opportunities down and go for it. I have limited abilities to do this, with classes and work budging in occasionally (and these are certainly not optional) but it's a balance that allows me to live my life without any regrets of the past day.

Okay, that paragraph just helped me.

Here are some more reasons why I love Linux!

I imagine that Linux is a large swimming pool. It's clean and it's fun, but it's pretty deep even in the shallow end. I swim a little and there's always something more, something new and deeper to explore. I choose my own pace.

Mac OS X is a large facility that I've heard a lot about, so I walk in and it's huge and gorgeous and fancy, and there are representatives of the company there to help me. They guide me through more wonderous and amazing corridors to, finally, a shallow basin where they tell me to lie down on my back. And then about four inches of water fills the basin. It's very warm and nice, but it doesn't cover my whole body, and I don't feel quite satisfied as I walk out, even though there are a ton of people around me jabbering away at how nice the facility is and how it's so much better than the swimming pool at the gym.

Being minimal is not just removing things for the sake of removing things. It's to make your life simpler, easier, and less complicated, so that you can focus your attention on what matters the most. When it comes to computing, I fully realize that my four years of Linux use has warped me beyond repair. I miss the endless exploration and learning curve. I miss being left to my own device; to not being treated like a fool or worse by the UI.

I'm going to go see if I can get my old laptop back. If I can, this will be a new stage on my minimalism. I have some plans, which I will document here later. Thanks for reading.