Simplicity!

 

Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail....Hardly a man takes a half-hour's nap after dinner, but when he wakes he holds us his head and asks, "What's the news?" as if the rest of mankind had stood his sentinels.

-  Walden, Henry David Thoreau

It was a smooth blue sky day. The kind of chilly start to make you reach for a thick sweater, but that warms by noon in the sun, but not too warm. When the sun starts settling back into its warm and soft bed, the air cools down so quickly I grab a sweater. I smile. I grab my book and settle with a blanket. I love when these days come along.

January is the best month of the year, but it can often be very hectic with newness, change, transition, projects, all the things a new year might provoke. These aren't inherently bad, but add them up it's a weight. With a new year comes all the possibilities.

Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! Thoreau provokes the ideas of getting out of the world in his memoir Walden. He was rather fed up with the world and all it's profit driven consumerism, and he decided to build a small cabin out by Walden Pond near Concord Massachusetts, and he stayed there for two years living the most simple life he could, to be more intentional and aware. It was an experiment he wanted to engage with and ponder over. That's how the book came into fruition.

Simplicity might look different to everyone. We can't all build a cabin in the woods and escape our everyday responsibilities, however the point is not that we should all follow his path but learn from it. We can all incorporate things that do ease our lives of clutter that only burdens.

I love the old reference to keeping accounts on your thumb-nail (he means it literally) and yet what would first come to mind for us and a thumbnail? Our computers, right? However the idea still translates to modern culture. A thumbnail is a small icon on your computer, and he is saying your schedule, promises, commitments, whatever should fit in a small space. Not fill up something larger than a finger nail.

In the margin of the book, next to the line about waking from a nap and needing to ask right away "what's the news?", I wrote - today this is social media. We wake up right away and check social media, emails, texts, news, etc. We always need to know the news, which is something that hinders us from leading a simple life. It clutters our minds with other "stuff" we don't need before we can even think for ourselves. The websites all try to get us online as much as possible - it's to connect us more, but I would argue that it disconnects us from ourselves and what matters. It's become so much the norm we don't even notice how things of genuine importance slip through our fingers.

Maybe we don't want simple. Maybe we like getting caught up in all of it, but I daresay if we tried to live for a short time (even a day, could we say a Sabbath?) living so simply (maybe without TV, phones, computer, appointments, errands, etc) we might find ourselves drawn to it as a source of refreshment and nourishment to our souls. Set some boundaries with how simple you'd like to be, and give it a go. I dare myself, and I dare you.