The aesthetically minimal man

I live in an apartment with nothing on the walls. It’s been that way since I moved in a year and a half ago. I have six beloved houseplants that add a bit of color, but otherwise the place is naked. I like it this way. If someone were to give me, say, a framed Mark Rothko print, I would hang it and probably enjoy it (he had pretty subdued tastes as well). But I don’t want one enough to go buy it myself. Nor would I care to buy anything else for decoration.

I used to be the opposite. In my high school and early college days, I liked to live in hyper-decorated rooms with Christmas lights hanging from the ceiling and posters covering nearly every inch of wall space. I felt a room like that was more exciting. I also felt it was a great way to broadcast my interests to anyone who might visit. My taste in movies and music, on garish display, would show my guests how fascinating I was. That was my hope, anyway.

Sometime since then I went and got boring. I may have felt all those old posters were a bit immature for a guy older than 21. I may have felt they just didn’t represent my tastes anymore. And I may have just decided that, after all the moving around in college, it was too much hassle to bother tacking anything onto the wall. I can’t exactly remember now, so I’m guessing it was a combination of all three.

The upshot is that I now live in a place that my 18-year-old self would probably be appalled to see. It would look so suspiciously adult to him. But what the idiot high school kid wouldn’t see is how superior the visually subdued environment is as a place to actually live. Those posters only amounted to so much mental clutter. I don’t need to see Robert De Niro’s face on a Goodfellas poster every time I sit on the couch. I don’t need to be reminded that I like Pink Floyd every time I walk in the door. I already know it.

We only have so much time and energy to think and feel. Routinely subjecting ourselves to visual (or auditory) stimulation that doesn’t stimulate our intellect or emotions seems like a losing proposition. The time it took my brain to process my Nirvana poster each day was minuscule, of course, but it was still something, and it all adds up. 

The busy-ness of my old rooms would now exhaust me. I would feel distracted and restless. A handful of beautiful paintings wouldn’t be so bad to have. But so many people these days are in the habit of filling their homes to the rafters with visual bric-a-brac that I can’t help thinking there’s a lot of good thinking time being crowded out. 

It’s the opportunities for thinking that make an aesthetically minimal living space trump the alternative. My mind works better in bare walls. I also feel it might be a better environment for conversation. When I have someone over now, we’re just two people sitting among some greenery having a chat. De Niro’s mean mug isn’t there to distract us. It’s a quiet pleasure most people wouldn’t recognize right away, but it’s well worth trying.