# Minimalism And The Human Needs

The concept of minimalism can be applied to many aspects of our lives.

## Why minimalism ?

 - because it works
 - because it makes us feel free: free from extra mental baggage, free from visual clutter and even free from extra load when traveling.
 - because it gives us a clear picture of what is really important and essential in our lives
 - because it can free us from the need of having too much money

## What is essential to life?

According to the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus, the essential human needs are only 3: shelter, food and human connection. These are both natural and easy to satisfy. We are just blinded and brainwashed by modern world into believing we need so much more. Of course, for some of us, these three needs are hard to obtain still, but once we understand what they are, we just need a few skills and tools to obtain them.

### Shelter

Everybody needs a home to be protected from the elements of nature or even from other badly intended humans. And we only need it mostly at night when we sleep and repair our bodies. In current times, we often use the terms "rent" or "own" for your home, but other situations can be found like "homeless" or "couch surfing", "living in nature" etc. Reality is that you need some kind of income to maintain your shelter. And this is usually the biggest expense and issue for most of us to solve.

Clothes are also part of this shelter category. But usually they are so easy to obtain, even make, modify or repair, that it won't be a big concern for most of us. Besides, you only need substantial and better quality clothing if you live in a climate that is colder than tropics or equator.

### Food

This is something people tend to obsess about: which is the right diet, we should discontinue eating processed food, eat paleo style, vegan etc. But unless we live in a farm where we can grow our own food and be more or less self reliant, we would also need to have some money to purchase the food and some education about which foods are actually helping us repair and keep us healthy and protected from various diseases.

### Human connection

Relationships are vital for our survival. And it's very important to build strong offline connection, that can be occasionally maintained with the help of technology like online communication. Not necessarily connection with too many people, this depends on each person's personality, but at least one other person is vital. Usually, human connection doesn't necessarily require money, but it could, especially if you need to support the other person.

So two out of three of our needs require more or less a source of income, so, implicitly we can say that we need also money, but only as a tool, to acquire the real need.

Other example of tools are: language skills, soft skills , hard skills for specific trades, technology of multiple types. Minimalism is also such a tool and it would imply using the minimum set of tools to achieve the goal.

The takeaway: we only need three things to be happy and healthy. Everything else we use sometimes and think we need are actually tools made to obtain those 3 things. Anything else could be discarded.