On Simplicity

When I was young and 'finding myself', I used to revel in being a complicated and mysterious person. I found that it served me well at the time because I still was unable to determine who to trust or exactly how much to reveal about myself. In fact, as a dysfunctional person as well, I would tell some I knew of the worst things (I thought) about myself, just to find out what their limits were. I constantly proved by doing so that I was unworthy; the self-fulfilling prophecy of a young woman who didn't know her place in the world or even in her heart.

Now, with age and too much experience in unpleasant things, I have become a simple person. Not simple-minded. Just simple.

These days, so many are influenced by popular culture to clean out their messy closets, organize their lives more efficiently, have makeovers to make life easier, change the way we live in our homes to free them of clutter. All moves towards this elusive simplicity that seems to be the realm of the monks.

But simplified surroundings to not make for a clutter-free mind.

I find myself embroiled in debates at times with people who would like me to be complex, to be sophisticated, who would like to drag me into several different directions, to be who I am not.

As a lifelong liberal, I embrace the simple principles of fairness, equality, justice, human and civil rights, tolerance, thoughtfulness, inclusiveness, compassion and an open mind.

As a buddhist, I embrace those values as well.

So it comes to times when I must take a stand on one issue or the other, online or in real life and I no longer feel comfortable delving into unnecessary complexities for the sake of satisfying someone else's need to have me do so. When you have participated in your own destruction in the past, knowingly or not, it's not that difficult to choose not to anymore.

Where it becomes difficult is when I wonder what people want from me - that my expression of what I believe in is not enough - that there must be more...of something. So, when I hold to my simple beliefs, I find some others can get frustrated. When I've taken that on, as I've done so recently, I find - inevitably - that I cannot fill their needs because that is not who I am. And I am left perplexed.

Is it not enough to live compassionately?

Is it not enough to seek justice for all?

Is it not enough to demand peoples' rights be honoured?

Is it not enough that those principles are so simple that they need not be obfuscated by irrelevant matters?

It ought to be enough to stand on simple principles, as far as I'm concerned.

And, if that's not enough, then I leave it others to be who they must be: complex, mysterious, confused and perhaps self-destructive.

I've been there. I am not there now.