What does it mean for me to be an ascetic?

Asceticism to me is a tool of resistance and liberation. It is a means of resisting the world’s incessant demands for more. More money, more stuff, more status, more travel, better food, more luxury. It is a form intentional discipline designed to decouple me from the rampant materialism and consumerism our world is trying to drag us all into. To step away from all that, say “no” to the allure of ever increasing luxury, status, and convenience, is the ultimate form of resistance. It is also a form of liberation, mainly from the need for more. To be free from desire, free from the need to indulge and consume.

It is a way of tapping into my true self, free from the need to spend money in order to feel good about my life and myself. It is choosing less in every way in order to experience the richness and divinity of ordinary life.

Asceticism is about stripping my needs down to the barest minimum, so that I may focus on what really matters to me: living a life of virtue. Namely, the virtue of seeking and sharing knowledge and wisdom with others. The virtue of creating something to share with others. The virtue of serving another generously with time and skills.

A quasi vow of poverty

As you see on my numbers page, I choose to live on less than the Federal Poverty Limit for a single individual while living with family. When I inevitably live on my own, I aim to live on less than a modified version of that metric, accounting for a more realistic inflation rate experienced by solo individuals.

I wanted my financial asceticism to be based on an official statistic and official metric outside of myself. If I naturally came to spending less by my own accord, and if I gave myself the option to violate that whenever I wished, it wouldn’t be asceticism. Asceticism implies a disciplined level of restriction with structure, and the Federal Poverty Line was a good place to start. It’s what our government sees as being impoverished or on the edge, and if we properly adjust that for inflation plus 1% to account for solo living, we reach a metric anchored in structure and logic.

Living on so little also forces me to feel the restriction that some people making less actually feel. It allows me to further empathize with the working class that I feel I have more in common with. I also feel more spiritually connected to myself when I strip away the excess that a bigger budget allows. I feel one step closer to Nirvana when I realize I don’t have the desire to spend money. By stripping my expenses down to the essentials with only a little left over, I can focus on my inner divinity.

I take a quasi vow of poverty not as a form of poverty tourism, but to get out of my own way financially as possible to focus on living a life of virtue. With my finances minimized to the lowest they can reasonably go, I can provide my full self to others in a way being hedonistic and consumerist wouldn’t allow me to. With my incredibly low projected withdrawal rate, I never have to think about money ever again, and I can dedicate my full attention to my virtues.

I would never say you should live on that modified poverty line or less, but if I can create a meaningful and impactful life while living on so little, I know you can find a minimal amount for you to live on that yields the same effect.

My role as a millionaire

I believe as a wealthy person it is virtuous to use my wealth for good. In fact, I believe it to be my moral and ethical responsibility. For me, this doesn’t come from strictly giving it away, although it can look like that to some extent. I plan on being of service to others primarily through donating my time, energy, and applicable skills generously. Since my intentionally low spend makes my million dollar portfolio essentially bullet-proof long term, I can focus my energy to being of service to others without needing to make money. After all, the money portion of my life is taken care of, what need do I have for more of it? Some people require a price tag on something I produce to view it as valuable, and in such cases I will charge only a nominal fee.

You may wonder — if I really call myself an ascetic — why I would still allow myself to be a millionaire? Why not give all of it away and live a true vow of poverty? The answer lies in practicality. I know the world we live in, and it’s one in which I could have easily become an insane, mentally ill, homeless person and no one would care. People might be sympathetic at best, but they would be unable and/or unwilling to help me. On average, they’d just assume I was a lazy bum or something of the sort. If things played out differently after my psychosis, I could have easily become that very homeless person I just described, and no one would notice or care. So I need to protect myself however I can. If that requires me to maintain my massive portfolio, then so be it. I don’t mind the seeming contradiction in terms.

Virtues I live by

This is still a work in progress, as I am finally granted the space to learn more about myself and think beyond needing to be purely pragmatic about life. Below are some virtues I live by and hope to inspire you to live by.

Freedom from Status: I choose to eat plainly, dress plainly, and use modest gadgets to live my day to day life. I drive a cozy, affordable sedan, and I avoid high status performances and signalers. To me, freedom from the need or desire for status liberates me from expensive cultural norms and expectations. It also releases the stress from needing to maintain a heightened image.

Freedom from Self Absorption: In our narcissistic culture, it’s easy to foster a massive ego to serve. To give it all the attention and validation from others it craves is an exhausting task, and it’s a form of slavery in and of itself. To maintain this bloated image of the self is expensive both financially and energetically. To liberate yourself from this empty self absorption is to expand your world. It is to recognize the interconnectedness of all things, and that there is a greater world beyond you. A good life is more than just about the self, it’s about every single one of us. It’s about being part of something bigger and contributing to it.

Freedom from Desire: To be free from desire — in particular, the desire to consume via spending — is absolutely liberating. It means I need less to live on, and I’m thus more free to create and share with others. It also makes me less of a slave to money itself. I believe real wealth comes not from having more, rather needing less. I haven’t mastered this, as I do still have consumption based desires from time to time. However, it gives me a north star.

Freedom from Consumption: I believe it is virtuous to need as little as reasonably possible to live. “Reasonably” is doing a lot of heavy lifting, as this will be determined by local cost of living. It may require moving to lower cost of living regions in some cases, but the point is that requiring as little as financially and materially possible, we open up much more space to be ourselves and provide our gifts to others. This doesn’t mean moving to rural middle-of-nowhere to achieve a minimal footprint (I plan on moving to a city myself), but it means being incredibly honest about what the bare minimum you need to live versus the bare minimum you want to live.

Conclusion

I believe that by inhabiting these freedoms, one can transform their life into a fulfilling one that requires as little financial footprint as possible. I think that by separating ourselves from the vain and materialist values of our culture, we can embody a deeper, richer way of life that gives way to purpose, belonging, and fulfillment. I hope to inspire you to find your minimum throughout this blog, and to act as a guide in living against the grain of modern consumption and vanity. You don’t need to be a millionaire, nor do you need to be ascetic like me, you only need to be willing to walk the path to finding your minimum and be honest about what truly makes you feel fulfilled and contented in life