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Leading A Simple Life
by David Arthur Walters
I am not the only one who is uncomfortable with the complicated, almost chaotic life of frantic production and consumption. Many are those who want a simpler life without so many distracting things. As we complain of the bewildering variety of "goods" at our disposal, we may also object to the single-minded pursuit of more things to consume. That single-mindedness is why some people have the understandable but mistaken impression that everything is becoming uniform without, when actually we have more variety without than ever before in the history of mankind.
The uniformity we actually albeit subconsciously abhor is within, the cause of the monomaniacal pursuit of happiness in objective quantities, in the multiplication and the variety of goods and services to the point that everything, not only the products but the producers, is diminished in value.
Of course nature offers us enormous variety if we care to observe her aspects and inquire into her secrets; she is the mother of our human variety. But no, modern nature is to be stripped of variety, converted into a factory, exploited and eventually reduced to a vast dumping ground so we can exchange a widening variety and growing number of products. She has become just another purse in which deposits are made, a womb callously cast aside when they bear fruit - in other words, the goose who lays the golden eggs is being abused - she will survive, but her abusers will not.
No doubt many consumers want to consume gobs and gobs of Product. In fact, there can never be enough Product, because what is wanted is not the disposable fetich but its mana, its power within, its everlasting life - providing one can get enough of it - but enough can never be had. Many consumers undoubtedly view the gigantic human-processing plant as hog heaven, and the junkyard around it as dog-eat-dog paradise. But I do not. The frenetic processing behavior of our excremental culture personally disgusts me. I prefer to have just a few well-made things; as for the spice of life, abundant variety exists in nature, and, given the human imagination, almost infinite variety is available to the psyche; I enjoy that psychological abundance, and I do not feel compelled to convert it into the production of ever more clutter in the world.
But alas, the shrunken psyche is obsessed with its fetich. It is monomaniacal. Yet, no matter how stupidly we may behave, still, at some subliminal level, we feel something is gravely wrong with our present scheme of things--the thingification of life. We become disenchanted with the compulsive production and consumption of our own waste. We feel we would be better off with simpler lives but we must keep our jobs. We might Just Say 'No' to our addiction and try to quit, but the withdrawal is too painful even when the 'No' is shouted. We are advised therefore to simplify not our external lives but our internal ones--that often entails doing what we were always doing but with fewer objections.
The most radical advice for psychic simplification is to focus on one object, a point or a god, or to listen to a single syllable, or to blank out the mind entirely. Periodic withdrawal from mental activities might be therapeutic for overtaxed minds, and, ironically, might even provide some access to the bulk of the psyche which is submerged under the conscious tip of the iceberg, but the permanent nullification of consciousness is better reserved for a coma or for death.
The more moderate brand of advice enjoins us to think simply and clearly. Professional professors of simple and clear thinking expressed in plain functional language are glad to teach us how to do just that. Alas, the advertisements are deceptive; the professors are propagandists for the very complex system annoying us. Their plain functional English is an advertisement for further consumption. Their simplicity and clarity serves the infernal machine with its yes-or-no program, and no ifs, ands, or buts about it. 'Maybe' or 'Both' or 'I don't know' are wrong answers. Moreover, the professional yes-or-no is a simile for the binary 1-or-0, virtually devoid of moral content, symbolized by the World Trade Center. The much touted psychic unity of mankind is now defined by experts as a binary switch.
"Thou shalt choose to consume either A or B." But that is no choice, for the underlying commandment is, "Thou shalt consume." There really is no 'Off' position, not for this machine. What could be more simple? And what could be more productive of the multiplication of tasks and products that distract us from the enrichment of the human spirit?
In my view, that sort of oversimplification of human life is the problem. The call for clear and simple thinking, by which its dictator means objective thinking, and the division of thought itself into more and more, simpler routines, perpetuates the problem by further negating the natural diversity in unity of the psyche. The application of scientific/technological methods to the human soul is not in reality conducive to leading a simple life because the purpose of the methodology is the erection of a gigantic forced-feeding plant where not only products but consumers as well are manufactured - to consume the bologna.
Therefore, I for one am wary of professional thinkers who call for their brands of clear and simple thinking as a solution to the very ills that sort of thinking actually aids and abets. I might admire the clarity and simplicity of expression of a professor's doctrine, but I suspect it all the more for its clarity and simplicity. Invariably it is supported by the weight of tediously footnoted (1) author-ities; the typical professor is not an original prophet but a reproductive priest: he does not have the wherewithal to stand on his own head and think for himself, yet he feels fully entitled to his copyrights. I am not fooled into thinking his clarity is truth. Just because I recognize a hackneyed phrase paraphrased yet again, I do not believe it is true. Nor do I believe I should feed on the usual regurgitated termite pap concerning how I should lead my life.
Yes, I too would lead a simple physical life, but not an impoverished, unwholesome, insane, oversimplified spiritual life such as the one many of us live today, not by choice but by command and habitual imitation.
