One word I frequently feel is implied in simple living/minimalist circles is “subtraction”, which might be understood as the act of letting fall away to reveal what has always been or is the essential or true, expressed in ways like “living with less to make room for more”.
Lydia Davis has a (very) short story called “Housekeeping Observation” which I think is really quite beautiful and has been formative in my understanding of simplicity/subtraction:
Under all this dirt the floor is really very clean.
Often the act of letting things fall away comes from a sense of keeping care (“housekeeping”), for ourselves and others, and for the space we find ourselves in together, that is to say in our relationships with one another and with this planet earth. Beginning to see what is essential in our lives, from our ways of being with others to examining what is needed to live on this earth and for ourselves is an act of caretaking and love.
What does it require and mean to take care of our world, to be caretakers or stewardesses for each other and for our future? What does “simplicity” mean, how can and is it practiced, embodied, lived in our day-to-day experience?
In this new year, I have thinking a lot about how “simplicity” might work itself in my life...not just towards personal teleological ends to own or do considerably less in my life but means of “keeping care”, as a dynamic and embodied ethical practice rooted in sufficiency, compassion, and continual, kind presence towards myself and others.
Part of how I hope to take care of what is around me is in my actions, in what I can control of my physical presence and footprint, another part is the kind of presence and curiosity I can bring to what I encounter. Nothing needs to be left out; it is as important to think about the clean floor underneath the dust as the dust itself; in other words, what is really essential and profoundly true and the various frameworks and paradigms that have covered up or fallen upon or have shifted what I perceive as the essential. I am only now beginning to see the ways in which my modes of being and practices (art making and reading, my meditation and Buddhist practice, my desire for equity and justice on this planet) intersect. Working to reduce the amount of waste that I produce is as loving as a careful sitting with and examining of phenomena as I sit on the cushion is as productive as admitting vulnerability and is as true as maintaining the possibility that our understanding of the world and its endless objects and subjects (and the subjectivities of those subjects) must always be mutable.
In practice this has looked like continuing to share gratitudes with a friend of mine, embedding myself deeper into community (be it my family, friends, neighborhood, the community of those involved in my interests, the “global” community at large), participating in small sharing economies in my city and other cooperative endeavors, deepening my contemplative practices and intellectual investigations…
I do not think, nor want to think “simplicity” has any singular or correct manifestation, but is instead dynamic and likely specific to each of us and our contexts, etc. and I so would love to hear what it means for the rest of you in this community. Is it an aesthetics, an orientation, an ethical framework, a practice, or instead something of your own creation?
Submitted January 05, 2017 at 09:17PM by cosmicowmics http://ift.tt/2iHzOer
