Shallow Minimalist Hearts Uramaki

These days, when someone asks me what I like, I try not to answer with the old favorite nouns that fit neatly into application boxes: doodling, reading, music, gardening. But what if one’s life is indeed this boring?

It’s not like I haven’t explored the arena of quirky hobbies. But unfortunately, after trying my hand at fishing, surfing, philately and even morse code chatting, I realized I’d rather sketch the one off crow on my graphics tablet. Maybe woodworking, if there’s room to sound a little rustic.

Photo by Teo Zac on Unsplash

One new and unique hobby that seems to have clicked with my clićhe-driven brain cells is composting. Now this didn’t happen because of any particularly noble moral awakening but because of a Sunday spent binge-watching minimalist documentaries.

The protagonists of these documentaries always seem to own one bowl, one chair, a multi-colored kit of trash bins, and a deeply photogenic sense of purpose. My impressionable personality liked all of this.

And so as I toss the vegetable scraps from the lunch preparation into a giant bin (procured specially for composting), I feel the quiet pride of someone trying to participate in the future.

This is a relatively new chapter. As a toddler, I used to hoard the natural world, everything from branches with good personalities, to pebbles shaped like punctuation marks and leaves that felt too specific to abandon. Adolescence refined this instinct rather than cured it. I collected Calvin and Hobbes with a devotion that bordered on obsession. I amassed fridge magnets from places I’d been and even from places I hadn’t (who could tell!). Souvenirs of both memory and aspiration, for those who could indeed tell.

Each object seemed to say: Keep me! I prove something!

Then, without ceremony, it stopped mattering.

It wasn’t a purge, or a dramatic afternoon with garbage bags and resolve. It happened the way forgetting happens: unnoticeably, until one day you realize you can’t quite recall why you once cared so much. The sadness of it surprised me. It felt like that moment in Toy Story when Andy’s name is scuffed off the sole of Woody’s shoe. It wasn’t tragic exactly, but it was definitive. Proof that belonging can fade without permission.

And yet, it was also liberating. To no longer feel responsible for preserving every former version of myself was to discover a new kind of lightness. Letting go became less about loss and more about trust. The future could now pick me up, mid-sentence, and carry me somewhere else. Unencumbered and free.

I’ve been trying to become a minimalist for the past two years. I now own fewer things and think about them more. I like working with my hands. I love the simplicity of wood, the way a plane can shave a surface down to its essential grain…in predictable ways sometimes and not much at other times. I like books because they justify their space. Plants because they forgive neglect but reward attention. Compost because it admits decay as part of the plan.

There is, however, sushi.

Sushi is the indulgence I have not been able to renounce, the one pleasure that refuses to be decluttered. I don’t mean the plastic bento box from the supermarket — one of the world’s great conveniences, and an underappreciated marvel of modern life. I mean proper sushi: fish cut with expensive knives that have been cleaned, rubbed, and arranged just so. Rice seasoned with restraint. Ginger placed with intention. Wasabi that is genuinely wasabi and not a green suggestion of it.

It feels, at times, like the last thread tying me to a very materialistic life. The knives alone could bankroll an entire minimalist manifesto. And yet, there is something simple and transparent about good sushi. It is luxury but a focused one. A meal that asks you to be present and notice texture, temperature and the exact moment when enough becomes enough.

Minimalism does not have to mean denial. It can mean choosing carefully and refusing to confuse abundance with meaning. If my life is spare but punctuated by a perfect piece of uramaki…I think I can live with that.

After all, simplicity should make room for joy. Otherwise, it’s just another collection…neatly arranged, and waiting, eventually, to be let go.