The Minimum Standard
June 16, 2025
Introduction
The following is an article relevant to my specific background and experience. It was the life I lived, but not the life I hope to live, and if you are not from the United States I can only try to give you a sense of what it is like.
There is roughly a point where people feel they have enough. There are many varying definitions, each depending upon the individual’s own perception. Most US residents would say the following is not enough (as to whether certain individuals have the capability to stop their communities from falling into disrepair, lethargy, and poverty is unknown. I have seen downward mobility based on attitude.)
Many people see the following as acceptable: living in a house of plastic floors, water that smells of chlorine, eating factory-farmed soy chicken and vegetable oils, culture that is emotional downstream waste of movies, TV shows, and social media. At the very least they don’t seem to be challenging the notion that constructing houses like this, cities that are nothing but freeways, etc. is an acceptable way to live.
Of those who have monetary wealth: they are spending it on vacations, cars, clothing, and appearances of wealth in far-away locations while the society around them rots. They might eat drugs like as Ozempic, follow the latest fashion fads, or do some specific thing (actually harmful) because that was what their peer group said. It requires deep and careful analysis in addition to self-understanding to not fall into this trap.
Bedouin attitude is about reducing expenses not but sacrificing quality, choosing minimalism, mobility, and learning over giving up, consumption, and low-wage menial jobs, it’s about having hope for the future and the will to keep going.
The Minimum Standard means to set a bar for the life you want to live, but also not giving into excess should you get there. I want nature, parks, going to the orchestra, public amenities. I think this is acceptable because it’s what I grew up with, yet I can’t seem to find it in the modern life.
