For most people, simple living is something they actively pursue,
slashing schedules, purging belongings, rediscovering the pleasure of the everyday. Not The Simple Man - he's never left it. As long as we've been together he's been in a pretty pure state of unjaded
simplicity. I've never known anyone like him and and he
totally deserves his moniker. However, he wasn't best pleased with it in
the beginning, mainly because calling someone "simple" has long been a
slur - traveling a broad range between challenged/delayed to eccentric. Simpleness is often misunderstood, despite having acquired a newfound popularity these days.
Many people still perceive simple
living to be what people do when they can't/won't live any other way due
to financial hardship or cultural backwardness. I've observed this
mostly in those who have an obscene amount of
money and live a correspondingly flashy lifestyle; they cannot imagine
that anyone could be happy with less than what they themselves have.
Then there are those who want to be those people with an
overabundance of money and refuse to believe that anything less could
make them happy. There still isn't widespread support for those interested in simplified living, and many people have never seen it modeled in real life either. There are a lot of misconceptions about deprivation, asceticism, obsessiveness, and who actually practices simple living.
Simplicity
has a different meaning for everyone. To me, simple is good. It's
better. It's light, calming, effective, and happy. It's stripping away
the tired, the technology based, the artificial, the busyness and
everything else our society and lives have become. It's when
nothing is too small to show an interest in. I believe it's living a more
mindful life, a life full of pauses and gentle consideration, tiny joys,
mind space and body space, real dreams, and contentment. While
I'd be ecstatic to see the Australian outback, knit an advanced sweater
(or perhaps any sweater!), hike footpaths all over Britain, eat
persimmons in Japan, write a detective story set in Moorish Spain, spend
the summer in an isolated cabin in Norway, bake a sixteen layer cake or
ride a motorcycle wearing a full set of leathers - I'm equally ecstatic to sit outside with friends in the warm dark of a summer
night, eating cherries and laughing, keeping our ears open for wails
from any of our sleeping babes. I keep my desires simple - happiness can
then come in big or little forms.
People who have always enjoyed simple
living are those who have recognized from the beginning that it's a
satisfying lifestyle, one that gives back continuously, and can usher in a sort of . . . oneness with life. It's like feeling life inside you rather than having to catch up with it on the outside. Those who discover it after a
life of too much usually say there is no comparison between the simple life
they now lead to the complicated one they left behind. It takes
willpower and longing to make one's life simple. You have to be strong
against the tide of More, you have to close your eyes and ears to all
those glossy and terribly fantastic baubles. Sometimes you even have to make a trusty person lash you to the mast lest you plunge into the sea,
making your way towards a magical place where gadgets grow on trees,
something culturally hip is always going on, your foodie nature compels
you to make recipes that require ingredients from 37 different specialty
shops, and you never say no to anything.
So.
Back to The Simple Man. I appreciate his directness, honesty, and morality - as well as his desire for a simplified life. He is
a simple man. His needs and wants are few and his good nature radiates
from him. He's a quiet man, a brave and generous man. The Simple Man is
unafraid of the truth, even when it's ugly. He does, indeed, mean what he says and says what he means. I have never encountered either
subterfuge or manipulation with him. When I make things too
complicated, which is only about ten or twelve times a day, he makes
them simple again, bringing issues back to today, this moment. There is
no doubt that I am biased, but even good friends have described
"The Simple Man" as perfect for him. To me, he
is a little of everything that is good about simplicity. And that, for clarification purposes, is why he is called The Simple Man!
What does simple mean to you?
