"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."
... Henry David Thoreau, Walden
This essay,
Boyne City, October 2023 II: Accounts On Your Thumb Nail,
is the companion piece to
Minimalistic.
It is also the second in a trilogy written in
Boyne City, October 2023:
Cause and effect. Everything is a result of that which came before it,
and that which came before it, is a result of that which came before
that - which, said another way, is: every effect is a result of a cause
which preceded it, and every cause which preceded it, is a result of an
effect which preceded that (yes, there are
elephants all the way
down).
Now enter the question "Why ...?"
front and center.
Q: Why did
Bodhidharma
go from
India
to China? A: Because the dinosaurs. No kidding. That's really not as
far-fetched as it might sound. How far back do we have to go on the
cause-and-effect continuum before we arbitrarily pick a point that
suits us, forward of which is a plausible explanation of / answer to
our "Why ...?" question, one we prefer and so can accept?
The question "Why ...?" may be ubiquitous in ordinary conversations,
yet it may not necessarily be a useful one to ask in
conversations for transformation.
In
conversations for transformation,
the most observable answer to any "Why ...?" question is "Because.".
And not "Because (of something) ...". No, just "Because.".
Q: "Why ...?". A: "Because.". Profoundly, things are the way they are,
and they aren't the way they aren't. That's even more powerful when I
discover it for myself.
But it's more than that actually. It's
transformative.
"Why ...?" is capricious and arbitrary. It's a question I may ask, to
gain interim clarity / understanding. But it's not the most powerful
transformative
question to ask
(my life
doesn't transform when I gain new clarity or understanding).
With that distinguished, and so to get to the subject of this essay,
I've finally figured out why (in the "to gain interim clarity /
understanding" sense) my erstwhile aspirations to accumulate / amass /
consume things like a house, property, cars, wealth, a varied wardrobe
of clothes, success, tchotchkes etc and all the
maintenance they require, diverted
my attention
from dealing with what's really important in
my life.
To put it
tersely,
we are that accumulating / amassing / consuming enough of
that which is purported to satisfy, fulfill, and complete our lives,
eventually will satisfy, fulfill, and complete us. And yet
it never does, yes? (tell the truth about it now). And why doesn't it?
(there's that capricious "Why ...?" question again). It doesn't,
because no amount of accumulating / amassing / consuming can ever
provide satisfaction, fulfillment, and completion on top of our
dissatisfied, unfulfilled, and incomplete lives.
Transformation is
an access
to our already-satisfaction-fulfillment-completion. And when I
take a stand on the already-satisfaction-fulfillment-completion of
my life,
all erstwhile aspirations to accumulate / amass / consume in order to
become satisfied, fulfilled, and complete are
recontextualized
(I
love
that
word).
Indeed, many of them are rendered totally moot. That stand is a
transformation
in my life,
after which I'm ready to offload, discharge, sell, and give away
almost everything of that which I've accumulated / amassed
/ consumed - that is to say, I'm ready to simplify
my life,
to downsize it, to
minimalize
it.
Simplicity /
minimalism
isn't a hallmark of transformation for everyone. For many, the onset of
transformation brings the power to accumulate and amass that which they
always dreamed about accumulating and amassing, yet didn't see a path
forward to doing. Transformation gives
an access
to the realizing of impossible possibilities. They're its defining
characteristics of which
minimalism
is but one made possible by bringing your already satisfaction,
fulfillment, and completion to your life, instead of amassing and
consuming in order to get it, requiring no ledgers, and keeping all
your accounts on your thumb nail.