Extreme Downsizing

How far are you willing to go?

Recently my wife and I downsized. We sold our home and moved into an apartment in Madison, Wisconsin, both because we like the city and our daughter lives there. We planned this move years ago and even had an apartment complex picked out, but then the Pandemic happened. Moving seemed like a really bad idea in 2020.

Transitioning from a sizeable home into a 2-bedroom apartment forced us to take a hard look at our possessions and make some tough decisions. Our personal space has shrunk considerably so every item we brought had to earn its way. The good news is that our new home has lots of shared space in the building we can use for either a change of scene or when friends come over.

While we had to shrink our footprint on the world to fit into our new space, we didn’t have to go to the extremes that fictional stories have explored.

Downsizing Movie was released in 2017 and starred Matt Damon. The film was a science fiction comedy about a married couple with financial difficulties making the decision to join an experimental community. By shrinking themselves to five inches tall, the cost to maintain their existence shrunk dramatically. The money they earned when they sold their house made them millionaires in this new place. Both had to go through a surgery / shrinking procedure and at the last minute the wife backed out. Matt Damon wakes up shrunk and by himself. The movie is described as a comedy, though I think dramedy is a more apt description of this film. While it certainly has its comic moments, it also explores some darker themes like poverty and self-fulfillment. Here’s the theatrical trailer.

Honey, I Shrunk The Kids was a Disney movie released in 1989. It was a surprise box office hit that led to two sequels. This science fiction comedy film starred Rick Moranis as a struggling inventor who accidentally shrank his kids and the neighbors kids to a quarter of an inch tall. Thinking his device was a failure and not realizing what he did, he smashed the shrinking machine and threw it along with his kids in the garbage. The rest of the film is about the kids struggling to get back in their house having to navigate the many hazards in the yard, both natural and manmade. Here’s the theatrical trailer.

Fantastic Voyage Movie was released in 1966 and was a science fiction action adventure film. A military medical submarine crew was shrunk to microscopic proportions then injected into the body of an injured scientist. Their mission was to destroy a blood clot in the scientist’s brain. Time pressure for the story was driven by the miniaturization process which only lasts for 60 minutes before the crew and the submarine revert to their normal size. There’s a Russian saboteur aboard the vessel adding a Cold War element to the movie. The film won a number of technical awards for special effects. My dad took me to this movie when I was a kid and I thought it was really cool! Here’s the theatrical trailer.

Bruce Lee - My Hero!

I’m a statuesque five foot four inches tall. While I never had NFL or NBA player dreams, size matters when faced with the schoolyard bully. As a kid the guy I wanted to be was Bruce Lee. He wasn’t a big guy, but Nobody messed with him!

I made up for this disadvantage as an adult where my size is a HUGE advantage when traveling. I can comfortably fit in ever shrinking airplane seats and rent small cars. Being shrunk further, however, isn’t on my agenda.

Do the advantages of small size outweigh the disadvantages?

Would you be willing to shrink yourself to the size of a bug?

Please leave a comment.

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