A small simple room just to come and sleep in, old slow phone just to keep in touch with family, an old scrappy laptop to research and study, same clothes from last year that your mom forced you to get so as to make you stop wearing that hoodie from 9th grade.
Nothing extraneous that can take up your attention. One can fully focus on what's at hand. A book, a test, a research, a project, training, anything singular.
I'd have that life 2-3 years ago. Although now I don't yet live in a mansion, or a high-end abode, my dorm isn't completely auestere either. It's the medium of what a college student can wish for, but it's exactly the medium part that is concerning. It should either be simple or lavish. The middle is the death pit. It makes one desire better conditions while the conditions are comfortable enough to suppress the urge to aspire for more.
My working setup is a MacBook Air M1 and a monitor I got on Coupang for $60. Yes, it's not the most state-of-the-art combination, but it gets the job done. While it's not very lavish, it's also not a simple machine (like the old packard bell laptop bought way back in 2013 and passed down to me from my mom). It's not sufficinetly fueling my sense of urgency.
My phone. I still question my purchase. I recognize the effect of having a very nice phone on people. Statistically, most of the people I know who own a phone worth anywhere above 800 bucks, with an income that could hardly make it imaginable they could afford that product, have very low sense of urgency. As per my perspective, them surrounding themselves with materials that are considered high-end diminishes their need to be in constant turbulent fight for a better life. I.e. they have a subconscious feeling of "I already have a good life, what more do I need?"
This false sense of security is what concerns me. Living below my means, eating 2x a day, using an ordinary Samsung A32 (which you can get for 200 bucks on Malika) just to give calls to family 5000km away, living in a 2x6 one-person room while having access to instruments that can help me fulfil my ambitions are satisfsctorily abundant.
As I look back, I feel nostalgic about the austerity I was used to. I felt no need to make anything more of myself than I actually was. But the social pressure that living in a different country with different people is not a completely fake reality. It's not as easy to push back as I'd previously think.
Simplicity is what my heart wants.