AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT SERIES: @riverflows
Hello and welcome to the MINIMALIST interview series, an initiative to turn the spotlight on the genuine, practising minimalists in our midst.
Aspiring minimalist @honeydue here.
Though I'm drawn to the minimalist ethos, I'm aware I've got a long way to go before I can call myself a true minimalist.
This is why I love this community. It allows me to interact with and learn from people who've embraced the minimalist lifestyle. I want to know how they got here. What drove them to minimalism, and what the challenges and rewards have been? What's the point of this platform if we can't learn from and help one another in our journeys?
Driven by a desperate curiosity of what else might be out there, aside from the bland, consumerist, traditional life path, I put down some questions I'm secretly dying to ask my favourite minimalists. And @millycf1976 has been lovely enough to allow it.
So whether you're at a crossroads in life or just curious about what else is out there, maybe you find some value in our interview series. Enjoy!
This week, for The Minimalist Author Spotlight No. 3, we have @riverflows, a seasoned traveller. Let's tune in to hear more about her journey towards being an authentic and practising minimalist.
Our guest for this week, @riverflows, has been a presence on the blockchain for over six years and a minmialist, in the truest, heartiest sense of the word since before it was a word. Well, before it was a trend , anyway.
An inspiring adventurer with a great love of nature, @riverflows walks her own path on this Earth of ours, sparing yet time to send a kind word and a message of hopefulness across the blockchain. Which is why we knew we simply had to talk to her.
: While minimalism may appear cut and dry from the outside, we know it takes many different forms. To start things off, could you explain what minimalism means to you, specifically?
@riverflows : There’s no pockets in a shroud, they say - or a coffin. None of the material stuff we hanker after for happiness can be taken with us when we die.
I’ve been thinking a lot about aparigraha - a kind of rule followed in Buddhism and Hinduism which came to me via a lifelong yoga practice started at 16. It’s the virtue of non possessiveness - basically, don’t be greedy. This is a needed tenet for a world where people profit off our desires and that reminds us that chasing after possessions and fame and holding so steadfast to belief systems isn’t what really makes us content, and risks harming ourselves and others in the pursuit of external goals.
This grasping is the root of all evil, yet it’s what the capitalist system which drives the entire world relies upon. Corrupt politicians, factory farming, child labour, human trafficking, class systems - it’s all linked to desire. The world is being screwed by our unwillingness to really think about why we want what we want and to be led by what profit mongering assholes tell us we want.
Buddha taught the practice of non-attachment as a way of dealing with these desires and aversions. Early on I thought this was about removing myself from joy and pleasure, a monkish life that keeps you separate from the world. Why would anyone want that?
But it’s really investigating the root cause of your unhappiness and suffering, which often take the form of either avoiding our fears and anxieties or clinging to things that make us feel better. Temporarily. Chasing followers on Tik Tok for approval, obsessive running to get thin, seeing ourselves as good based on our political leanings - we’re attached to our bodies, the approval of others, our beliefs. Because these things are always changing and are external to ourselves, it can lead to unhappiness. I think as you get older you start to realize that even more.
Minimalism to me thus has ancient philosophical, ethical roots. It’s more about a mental state. It asks us to constantly interact with our desires and aversions without getting obsessed by them or stuck on them. Nothing is permanent. Our bodies decay. Our beliefs can be shattered. We can lose our jobs, our houses, our children. If we don’t embrace that impermanence is the natural state of things, we’re bound to suffer far more than we perhaps need to. If we fully embrace the fluidity of life, we can move through it with greater ease and less anxiety about how things ‘should’ be.
At the risk of writing pages about this philosophy, I’ll just finish by saying how ‘minimalism’ is absolutely a philosophical practice that aligns beautifully for me with a life long interaction with concepts such as aparigraha and non-attachment. It feels like a personal and moral choice in a world that needs us to choose kindness, empathy, and other positive human values over greed.
And there can still be a lot of joy in that. I find joy in nature, or in a bit of cool tech like a camera that can help make art. You don’t have to stop consuming at all. You just have to be conscious about what you’re consuming and why that is, and if your choices are ethical ones. You end up with far more joy in living a present, mindful and aware life.
: We love a good origin story. How did you first get started with minimalism? What were some deciding factors? Was it a gradual shift or an abrupt change? Tell us a bit about that.
@riverflows : Resisting conventions has been a punk act for me since I was in my very late teens. I took off traveling west across the Nullarbor with my best mate in a ‘76 Ford Falcon, a milk crate of books, a pet rat and a surfboard. She crashed into a tree and I bought a ‘76 Toyota Corolla. I had a single mattress covered in astronauts, a gas bottle and burner, towels pegged on the windows for curtains, my clothes and a surfboard. I lived off lentil dal and vegemite toast. We were on what they called at the time Jeff Kennett’s Surf Team, a satirical name for those who traveled Australia on the dole. Kennett was the state premier. Thanks Jeff.
At the time, it was a risque, crazy thing to do. None of the friends we grew up with did this. People looked at us with a bit of wonder, envy and jealousy. It certainly wasn’t conventional. Damn, didn’t we feel clever, sleeping under a wheel of stars on the edge of the desert with waves smashing on deserted beaches? It meant something - the red dust in your toes, the endless horizons, the people you met on the road. It was of far more value than staying home and working in a cafe or going to uni like we were supposed to.
"Sometimes minimalism is about not living beyond your means - our Bedford bus life whilst saving for a house deposit" @riverflows
That started a whole life of being happier on the road than in four walls. It’s no coincidence I met my husband when he lived in an old Bedford mobile library. He had 90 quid to his name and I thought - here’s a man who gets it. Of course, we wanted the dream too - a house in the countryside - but only insofar it’d give us a kind of freedom from society. Raising chickens, growing our own veggies, running off solar power - that was a shared dream. And yes, we both went to uni and became teachers. It enabled us to buy the things we found valuable, and to give back to society as well by investing in young people.
Of course, once you start, there’s a lot of other things to consider. For example, in Australia we have an involuntary superannuation fund that enables us to save for retirement. But we can choose where this money goes, eschewing the companies that invest in war, for example. I’m not going to buy shampoo that’s made by an Israeli company or eggs that aren’t free range because intense agriculture freaking bothers me a lot.
So the snowball is all the conscious choices about how you live.
And I still crave the open road - traveling in vehicles can remind you that you need very little to be happy. We’ve lived in a 60’s Bedford bus, a Bedford TK horse lorry, various old caravans, vans, and now Land Rovers. There’s not much we don’t know about minimal life on the road!
: Drastic changes bring about new wisdom. What was one thing you learned, after embracing minimalism, that perhaps surprised you?
@riverflows : Ha, that it had a name and a label? They call swimming ‘wild swimming’ these days. They call living in a vehicle ‘van life’. And still they’re selling a dream.
Maybe looking back on my life, the surprise is that I chose this so early in my life. I feel like patting younger me on the back. Well done, younger Riverflows.
I also find it interesting that a lot of people my age are practicing minimalism because they are looking ahead to the next twenty years and the fact they’re going to die. I’m not saying this in a maudlin, fatalistic, tragic sense - death is just something we need to embrace as a beautiful part of life. If we’ve hit 50 and we’re still madly clinging on to what people think of us, how much money we’ve got in the bank, and our possessions, we’re going to have a harder time letting go when the time comes. I don’t know about you, but I’d like to take my last breath feeling unencumbered, light, content.
: How has your alternative lifestyle affected your role in your community? Was it a reason for conflict, help you make new friends, etc.?
Life on the road has its challenges.
@riverflows : Never for conflict, always for connections. I run a local community group on Facebook for gardeners. I give away plants. I invite people to my garden to share herbs and vegetables. No one’s gonna hate on that. And it’s kinda humbling to inspire younger people who are seeking something else because they’re unhappy with the life they’re being sold.
Thinking about the global community, on the road in Portugal, I met a young German girl out surfing with me who spoke to me a lot about the forces she has on her to choose a career and have a particular life. She reminded me so much of me when I was that age. We spoke for a long time about what things in life were really important, on a heart level. I think she really loved talking to an older woman who had started exactly where she was and managed to still get an education and participate in society yet live alternatively as well. There’s a balance, we agreed. After a surf we sat in the back of the Land Rover and talked about what makes a happy life and how none of it has to do with your material wealth - it’s the richness of experience that matters. She loved the fact we were traveling this way. This girl gave me the biggest hug when we left.
: Who inspired you? Whether it was someone you knew (online or in the “real world”) or some personality you followed online, the author you’d read, etc., who was your no. 1 (human) reason to choose minimalism?
@riverflows : There wasn’t a number one person that inspired me to choose minimalism. I perhaps rejected maximalism more than anything - seeing people unhappy even if they had everything.
I was inspired by my parents who always lived an ethical lifestyle. They were vegetarian from the ‘70’s because they hated the way animals were treated. They wanted me to get an education and have a good job but they also supported my passions. They’d vote for the political party that was going to benefit the country as a whole, not just them.
Their house is beautiful - it’s environmentally conscious, and every beautiful rug and piece of art means something, has beauty. Their garden invites birds and insects. Dad and I did a vipassana meditation course together once - when either of us ‘want’ for something we remind each other of Goenke-ji’s recorded dialogue where he says we are always ‘wanting, wanting, wanting’ and how that doesn’t bring us happiness.
Saying that, he worked hard for what he has and gets enjoyment from what he has, as they didn’t have it growing up. But he’s always says to me ‘you can’t take it with you’ whenever I’ve been hankering after something that is clearly causing me stress and anxiety.
: Minimalism can act a bit like a rolling snowball. One minute, you’re throwing out extra placemats, the next, you’re transitioning to a completely off-grid (perhaps nomadic) lifestyle. Does that statement apply to your personal experience, and how much of it was planned? In other words, did you start downsizing to go off-grid/travelling, or did you spiral deeper into that world, the more you embraced it?
@riverflows : I’m 53. I’ve been doing this since I was at least 18. I don’t have the extra place mats because I never bought them. Okay, maybe those rattan ones from Bali in 2015 - but I still have those. But honestly, this has been my whole life. There was no spiral. Just a flatline of conscious consumerism.
It’s a lifelong practice. You don’t just downsize and be done with it. Sometimes you are just maintaining the size - no up or down, just making do with what you have and trying not to buy shit and reading labels and worrying about what company is behind it because you don’t want to supply arms to Israel or be responsible for rainforest destruction in the Amazon. Apigraha - non possessiveness - is also linked to ‘ahimsa’ - non violence, to yourself or others. Conscious consumerism, y’all.
Traveling in vehicles - like we just did in Europe with our vintage Land Rover - keeps reminding me that I’m happiest with what I can carry in a backpack or shove in the back of a vehicle. There’s a real sense of freedom with that.
: Some people find it a scary leap to this alt lifestyle. There’s a concern that if we ditch modern, materialistic dogma, we’ll find ourselves isolated. What was your experience with that?
"Our tiny home this year - super minimal living!" @riverflows
@riverflows : I think there’s more and more people adopting a less is more lifestyle, particularly since COVID, when a good part of the world woke up for at least a minute and realized that we’d been duped about the whole work-life equation. Many families in Australia have taken six months off work to do the big lap with the kids, and when traveling Europe I’ve spoken to countless people who have sacrificed wages for a slower, easier life on the road, because, as they keep saying ‘life is short’.
I think a lot of young people are unhappy and they’re smarter than people give them credit for. They’re realizing they’re sold a lie they can’t actually chase - how can they possibly attain the same dream their parents did of owning a house? They’re resisting the narratives that most of us have been happily believing for the last fifty years - if you work hard enough, good things will happen. So what’s the alternative? If they’re not able to buy the Australian dream, where do they find value and purpose in their lives?
Look at young people ditching smartphones for ‘dumb’ phones, resisting their time being stolen. Look at how many of them are really concerned about the environment, and how this is reflected in their lifestyle choices such as slow fashion or zero waste shopping. They’re questioning, just like us, what is meaningful, what has value - both for themselves individually but also the entire planet.
Personally, I’ve never really cared what people think of my alternative living choices. It’s kinda funny how what people thought was weird or strange is now mainstream - they’re selling van life now rather than wanting to burn us at the stake for it. When I lived on a traveler’s site in a horse lorry in England, I never really told people at work about it because I knew how society felt about travelers. It was just too much of a hassle to have ‘those conversations’ to break down stigma and stereotypes. Now everyone’s got a van and is trying to find a piece of land to park their tiny home on. I never thought I’d see the day where this lifestyle would be commodified.
: Minimalism and parenthood can often be a tricky mix. If you are raising (or raising) your children as minimalists, what were some things you wish you’d known? In what ways do you feel it improved your children’s experience growing up?
@riverflows : You know, there’s one memory that always connects to mother-guilt for me. We’re in Portugal, just north of Lisbon in this coastal town, and my four year old is staring in the window of a toy shop where plastic soldiers aim plastic guns at the street. He’s enamored with them, and although he never asks, I know he really wants them. So here’s me giving the little lad a lecture on war, and how those soldiers are making kids accept it as fun, when really it’s about making money for governments and killing people. Poor kid. I put the choice in his hands. Of course, he chose not to have them, but how much choice did he really have? I was trying to instill a message of being wary about what he’s actually being sold and his desire for fun. I instantly regretted being so darn militant about it. But he grew up with this politicizing of consumerism and he was intelligent enough to understand the truth of what I was trying to get across. I felt it was a super important message to instill in him.
Back then, traveling Europe, he had a little Bananas in Pajamas backpack and as much Lego as he could carry. Lego, Mum approved of - it had value. We carried a plastic bag of food - crackers, tuna, queso fresco, hummus, tomatoes, cucumber - and a knife. We had 3,000 AUD to our name - that’s 1500 euro - and lasted eight months over ten countries. PEople thought I was mad or irresponsible or both. It was one of the best years of my life.
My kid never wanted for anything - he had a good education and we had family holidays to SE Asia. He had clothes on his back and was well fed. I always remember saying to him at 15 that he needed new trainers because the ones he had had holes in them. He refused because in his mind they were still functional. He’s never cared much for money. He’s a house husband and father doing some bar work and music production. Him and his partner would like a house, of course, but it doesn’t make them unhappy they might not ever afford one - they’ve just reassessed their values. They don’t live beyond their means. They know that happiness is not equated with possessions.
: Finally, a bit of a classic. What’s some practical advice you’d give someone just contemplating a minimalist/alternative lifestyle right now?
@riverflows : Remember there’s no pockets in a shroud.
Go with what makes you truly happy, not what they - society, government, social media - tells you makes you happy. Get to the root cause of why you want or don’t want something, and teach your kids how to assess that and interact with their desires and aversions.
I honestly think the world depends on it.
Honestly, some of my favorite things are rocks and shells and fossils I’ve collected off beaches. They remind me of beautiful experiences and the wonder of nature, and often the vastness of time - I’m only a tiny gasp in the history of the universe and I’m good with that. I can’t give myself permanence through possessions. I’m going to be dust and sand and earth - that’s super cool. How lucky am I!
Honestly, there’s joy in having less. Don’t sweat it.
Thank you so much to @riverflows for the inspiring words and for taking the time to share her journey with us.
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Due to the subject matter it doesn't seem right to go on too long how this interview seemed to me. So let me just say, fantastic! ✌️💛
hahaha thanks!
What a beautiful journey, story, and photos. I love the principles of Yoga that coincide and guide you in your minimalistic practices.
It sounds like you were a radical before your times, so kudos to you.🤗
That gave me goosebumps; they seemed perfect for each other.
Thanks for such a powerful song that conceptualises everything:)))
Thanks @millycf1976 - I think my radicalism comes from me being sooo bored by sameness! I was always going to choose a resistant path.
I really loved doing this interview, and I really am enjoying everyone elses - I do hope Milly and Honey interview each other!
One of the things I long for in my life is to be able to live in a country house, raise animals and live off solar energy. I can't think of a nicer way to live than that. It is inspiring to read that you have had this lifestyle since the age of 18 @riverflows 😻 I wish I could have met you back then and known the benefits of this lifestyle when I was 18. It is definitely worth learning and practicing. Life would be easier.
I admire those who surf. I really like the way they handle the board in the waves. I've always been afraid to do it 🤭
I really liked your pictures. I think they convey very well what you express 💟