5/8/23, 6:20 PM Daring to Be Simple - The School Of Life

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calm • serenity

DARING TO BE SIMPLE
It can take a very long time indeed to work up the courage to be simple: to read simple
books, to wear simple clothes, to have simple days and to say simple things. For a long time,
all the advantages and glamour seem to lie with complexity. We are pulled towards rare and
hard-to-follow ideas; we entertain our friends with elaborate meals; we pursue convoluted
relationships; we have careers that enmesh us in cumbersome commitments; we fill our
leisure hours with exotic hobbies.

And then at some point, we may sense and aspire to the real challenge of existence: to dare
to sound – to some – like an idiot; to fix on certain basic truths we’ve always known, to edit
down our calendars, to wear only what is comfortable, to put in front of others the same sort
of basic foods we like when we’re alone, to have relationships solely with those who know
how to be direct, to leave our days more or less free apart from one or two elementary
pleasures (tending to a garden, having a bath, going for a walk), to limit our reading to books
we can understand and to communicate without inhibition all those heartfelt and essential
things we know to those we are close to (that they are everything to us and that we’ll miss
them immensely when it is over).

Photo by Gabriel Garcia Marengo on Unsplash

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