Day 24: Perfect Simplicity

Random Observation/Comment #311: I’m not a very philosophical person, but when I imbibe enough alcohol, I tend to have an opinion about anything and everything.

see lemons perfectly simple

Having a personal mantra is essential to knowing yourself.  If you follow a phrase, tough decisions in your life will be broken down into less complicated fundamental questions that can be guided by your deepest desires.  I am a man of perfect simplicity.

Let’s start from Perfection.  Many people strive for perfection. They want to control their lives and they do a very good job at meticulously making sure that all the details are in order and all their problems have some type of solution.  In these people’s minds, they understand perfection can never be attained because it is, after all, an ideal.  We can always strive to attain the ideal, but when we reach close to it, we’ll always dream bigger and think deeper.

Perfection is just supposed to be the inspirational piece in the distance so you can clearly visualize yourself stepping closer towards having these life goals completed.  Imagine you had finished everything and everything was perfect… What a sad and confusing day that would be… Would you be happy?

On the other side, there are people who are probably minimalists who just want simplicity. They curve out the right angles and agree with the natural course of life. It’s really a generalization and eloquent summary of complicated matters.  Instead of being tied down by the details and trying to solve all the problems, the simple solution steps back and sees a bigger picture.  It relaxes many of the rules by very simply avoiding them.

As the wise quote goes: “Mo’ money, mo’ problems.”  Keeping things in moderation and staying away from complex drama keeps the life free of such pollution.  The fewer the things, then the fewer the need to get accessories for those things.  Remember how simple life was before we were terribly corrupted by money and the need to hoard it?  It’s just paper.

Putting these two ideas together, Perfect Simplicity has become my personal philosophy.  It originally came from “Children of the Mind” in the Ender’s saga by Orson Scott Card.  The philosophy in the book was described as a particular balance in life where the surplus of good fortune is shared while all the bad fortune has disappeared.  I have interpreted it in a slightly different way.

In order to explain my idea of perfect simplicity, I must first talk about happiness.  Happiness is the chocolate chip cookie right out of the oven; it’s the feeling of taking off your ski boots after a full day of skiing; it’s the view of something majestic and inexplicably beautiful;  It’s the accomplishment of making someone you love proud; it’s seeing your loved ones at the airport after traveling for a while.  These are all moments that bring that shiver through your bones and curls your lips into an uncontrollable smile.

For me, Perfect Simplicity is similar to Happiness because it’s a state of mind and often fleeting.  Perfect simplicity is the work-life balance that provides free time and important contributions to your community; it’s the balance of being as much of a producer of content as you are a consumer; it’s the necessity for teaching back what you’ve learned so the cycle of striving for perfection continues; It’s about giving love as much as you receive it.  These are all moments where you feel like you belong to a community and live a life of personal importance.  It’s the determined drive to reach the unachievable goal of a life that lives in the lowest state of energy – a simple and balanced life of bliss.

Perfect simplicity and happiness live in the same moment and in every action or intention that influences this state with everyone in your community.  My life lived in perfect simplicity is one that always searches for equilibrium. Similar to “Living in the moment”, I am choosing the most natural route to maintaining peace of minds.  It’s hard to explain as a set of guidelines, but just remember that it’s easier if you don’t over-analyze everything.

We all know the vastness of infinity in time and space makes the now and the here rather inconsequential to the multi-verse.  However, if you believe in an eternal soul or spirit (or even if you don’t), the time given to our frail bodies and minds are limited.  The invention of time by humans makes everything incredibly more important to me – to us.  As time is being perceived by other creatures that exist in the same time span, I find it irrelevant that I am only a speck and a blip.  To me and my community, our lifetimes should be cherished because internally we all see things as a speck and a blip.

~See Lemons Perfectly Simple