Fall 2008
Editor’s Note
We visited a friend’s house the other night and ended up, inevitably, in the kitchen where all good conversation takes place. Above the sink was a handsome, hand-painted sign (created, we later learned, by our host) that exclaimed “SIMPLIFY!”. We asked if the sign helped and our host sheepishly replied “sometimes”. Similar admonitions seem more in evidence of late and we wondered whether there had been a corresponding change in behavior. We thought not.
We can thank that famous Cape Cod visitor, Henry David Thoreau, for first raising this alarm although he no doubt was only the latest in a series of prophets vainly trying to save us from ourselves. He shouted:
“Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!
I say, let your affairs be as two
Or three and not a hundred or a thousand….
Simplify, simplify!”
The current state of our economy may quickly advance our adoption of his plea. This whole mess we’re in can be laid at the feet of many, including our own. Lots of time for analysis now that the horse is out of the barn. Thinking twice before driving the car? Wondering where one can buy a few cords of seasoned oak? We sure are at this address. But if we truly want to simplify our lives, how do we decide what those few important and simple things are? We conclude this missive with the words of Robert Louis Stevenson who offers a suggestion and perhaps an answer:
“The best things are nearest: breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand,
The path of God just before you. Then do not grasp at the Stars but do life’s plain, common work as it comes,
Certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things of life.” |