Simplicity, simplicity. If I was really practicing it, I would have said it once. I’ve been trying to cut down on the clutter in my life, mostly because I keep stubbing my toes on it. But also because people say it helps you focus on the things that matter.
Well, not stubbing my toes matters to me. So I’ve been donating or throwing out every unnecessary thing I own. It’s out with my presidential bobbleheads, my chess set with the missing pieces, and my refrigerator. When you think about it, you don’t technically need a refrigerator. People have practiced simplicity long before they discovered food poisoning.
One of the foremost pioneers of simplicity didn’t have a refrigerator. He didn’t have electricity, either, but that’s just trivia. Ralph “Waldo” Emerson was a big name in the simpler times before “the simpler times” was an idea. He was mainly known as an essayist. He probably could have done well as a talk show host, too, but TV hadn’t been invented yet.
In one of his notable essays, “Nature,” he wrote that it should be everyone’s goal to become a transparent eyeball. Of course, people didn’t understand that in his day. They didn’t understand electricity either, but that’s beyond the point.
“Ralph, I thought this essay was about nature,” said Emerson’s contemporary, Henry David Thoreau (or words to that effect). “Where does the transparent eyeball business come in?”
At this point, Emerson probably showed him two angry eyeballs. “People might think you’re selling glass eyes or something,” continued Thoreau (and I think he had a point). “You have to say it more simply.” “You’re one to talk,” shot back Emerson (or so I have been informed). “Nobody can even spell your last name.”
Despite the tiff between the two, they succeeded in chumming up long enough to make a whole movement about reconnecting with nature. They also wrote about 827 complicated essays that I had to read in high school. The only nature I saw during those days was in National Geographic.
Still, the simplicity idea has stayed popular. In Emerson’s time, the people who wanted simpler lives were called Transcendentalists. A little while ago, they were called Marie Kondo fanatics. Now they’re probably called something else. But if you look for them, you’ll find them.
At least, you will if you don’t own so many things that you’ve given up being able to locate other people through them. I haven’t yet approached the state where I can’t find my fellow human beings among my stuff. But I do have mixed feelings about returning to nature. After all, nature lacks more or less everything pleasant. There are no comfy armchairs. No remote-controlled cars. Not a single presidential bobblehead.
On the other hand, without all those, there’s a heckuva lot fewer things to bang your toes into. So maybe Emerson had a point. Maybe being a transparent eyeball just means that you look at the world more clearly, without letting anything clutter your vision. Or it could mean you need a new refrigerator. People think funny when they eat bad food, you know.
Alexandra Paskhaver is a software engineer and writer. Both jobs require knowing where to stick semicolons, but she’s never quite; figured; it; out. Check out her website at https://apaskhaver.github.io.
