Sunday Scribblings: Simple

Oscar Wilde was quoted to say, “ The truth is rarely pure and never simple.” I’m not quite sure if Oscar Wilde really said it, but it is one of the quote attributed to him. The world is complicated as it is, and the hard truth stands firm: life is crazy and complicated and messy.

Thus our pursuit of the simple life.

I have a lot of stuff. I realized that this week. I walk around my apartment and really look at the things I own. The things that are piling in closets and cupboards and nooks in rooms. I think of the things I keep at my mom’s place. Years and years’ worth of trinkets and tidbits. If you are new to my life, you might not know that I had an obsession with shoes. I own 98 pairs of shoes. Yes. That’s not a typo. I also apparently collect books and movies.

What is this fascination with owning stuff? This is not a judgment question as it is a question I’m asking myself. I remember my last week in Seattle, getting ready to move out of my apartment. I was so overwhelmed by the amount of stuff that I accumulated over seven years. I remember sitting on the floor, surrounded by all my earthly belongings, crying my eyes out. I was crying partly because I didn’t want to move away from a place I’ve called home; the other reason for the tears was that I had so much stuff, and I didn’t know how I was going to get rid of all of them.

We accumulate things. I accumulated random hair accessories, ticket stubs, printed photos, gadgets I purchased (truly believing that I was going to use those gadgets and they were going to change my life). I realize, though, that for most of the things - maybe with the exception of the gadgets - the things I owned tell a part of my story. Things I accumulated hold a memory of a moment, an event, a person, a feeling. And I keep the things because I want to remember.

We accumulate things. They don’t call it baggage for nothing. In our lives, we hoard things: feelings, expectations, broken dreams, abandoned aspirations, a comment someone made about our looks, embarrassing moments, the feeling of being loved, achievements. And then we find ourselves at some point in our lives where we sit on the floor, surrounded by all these… things. And we’re in tears.

In pursuit of our simple life, we try to downsize.

It’s easier to get rid of physical objects than it is to get rid of the intangibles. We don’t just forget. We carry our baggage with us like battle scars. The most we can do is process through how our scars have affected our lives, and how they would help us live better. Not simpler. Just better.

Life will always be complicated, and in its complications there is beauty.

I just want to take this little note and this little time to remind you:

Some of the memories will stick around. Some of us aren’t gifted with the gift of forgetting. But your life is beautiful in all its complications.