Just One More Box to Carry
Now they broke my toothbrush, I don’t own anything.
– Lee Child, Bad Luck and Trouble
I thought about that line as I sat on a cardboard box in the middle of my half-packed apartment, surrounded by the archaeological layers of my life. Books I hadn’t opened in years. Mugs with chipped edges. A woolen hat I bought in Berlin and hadn’t worn since 2018 but couldn’t bring myself to toss.
Somewhere between the third box of tissue papers (why do I own so many?) and a half used bottle of hand sanitizer that refused to fit neatly into any category, I had a revelation: Minimalism is a lie.
At least, the kind sold to us—the pristine white rooms, the curated capsule wardrobes, the idea that if I just owned fewer things, I’d somehow be freer, happier, more enlightened.
But here’s the truth I learned while drowning in packing tape: The minimalist ideal imagines us as sovereign individuals unburdened by things. But we are ecological beings, our identities formed through interaction with our environments. Those boxes aren’t just containers of junk - they’re the sediment of a life lived.
Martin Heidegger argued that our being is fundamentally “being-in-the-world” - we exist through our engagement with objects. That chipped coffee mug isn’t just ceramic; it’s the vessel that held your morning ritual for a decade. The scratched desk bears witness to your labor. To purge these things isn’t liberation; it’s a form of self-erasure.
The Japanese concept of “mono no aware” - the pathos of things - recognizes the profound melancholy in objects that carry our histories. When we declutter, we’re not just discarding items but severing tangible connections to our past selves.
We live in an age where entire libraries fit in our pockets. Photos live in clouds. Music doesn’t even need to be owned—just streamed. It seems that you don’t need to physically own anything, just log into your cloud account, you find all the photos you’ve taken, all the music you’ve listend to in the past. They will forever be there, even when you’re gone, as long as the server is still operating.
And the best part? the digital version of your possetions don’t wear. they will be forever crisp and pristine. But when you compare them with the faded photo of your grandparent in your wallet, you suddently realize that something is missing.
The book your best friend signed when they moved away. The postcard from a trip you almost didn’t take. The coffee stain on a letter that reminds you of a rainy afternoon.You could scan them. You could toss them. But something would be lost—not just the object, but the physical proof that you were here, that you felt something, that you lived. Somethings in life just refuse to be weightless.
There’s a scene in Fight Club where Tyler Durden says, “The things you own end up owning you.” But what if the opposite is also true? What if the things you own anchor you? Not in a suffocating way, but in the way roots anchor a tree—letting it grow taller because it’s not afraid of being swept away.
Maybe minimalism isn’t the answer. Maybe the answer is owning without apology. Keeping the things that matter, even if they don’t fit in a tidy Instagram grid.
Even if it means more boxes to carry.