Minimalism as practiced by serious men is often armor dressed as aesthetics. You pare down your possessions and call it simplicity, but really you’re building a contrarian badge that says: I’ve transcended ordinary wanting. It’s austerity as signal. The meal replacements, the monochrome phone screen, the bare desk lit by a designer lamp — they’re not about freedom. They’re about control. And underneath all the curation there is envy. You’re trying to reverse-engineer the Simple Man’s pared life without admitting you’re doing it.

— Envying a simple man