Persephone
March 23, 2023
Gone Fishing
April 6, 2023
Sometimes my mind gets complicated, and my thoughts grow overly complex. When that happens, I recall a portion of an article I wrote:
“Imagine Nature coming to a crossroads with a choice of two paths. One is marked by a sign in the shape of an arrow that reads Complexity. The other is marked with a similar arrow, but this one spells out Simplicity. Which path would you choose? Nature decided to take both. The split occurred around 3.4 billion years ago. While bacteria took the complex pathway to larger multi-cellular structures, viruses jettisoned everything except the absolutely necessary and grew smaller. A typical influenza virus is just fourteen protein genes surrounded by a protein sheath.”
The lowly virus is the most numerous and powerful life-form on Earth, but we know relatively little about them. They have thrived using Less is More, and for that reason, their approach is worth emulating.
By stripping down to only the essentials, I can clear my mind of clutter and move forward.
2 Comments
Hello Ivan,
Thank you for this much needed reminder. It’s true that we could all benefit from keeping things simple, especially in our minds. The evidence that most people don’t is all around us.
Like you, there are times when I get stuck in my own thinking. My fiancé and I are currently planning our wedding while also preparing to welcome our first child. After eight years together, we couldn’t be happier, but it’s a situation that naturally creates a fair amount of mind clutter! The innumerable thoughts, anxieties, and choices that present themselves daily can be overwhelming. It’s a challenge not to be bogged down by it all.
My old teacher, a Zen master, would often use this Sherlock Holmes quote from ‘A Study in Scarlet’ as an example of skillful thinking:
“You see,” he explained, “I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has difficulty laying his hands upon it. Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.”
Replace ‘facts’ with ‘thoughts’, ‘feelings’, or ‘ideas’, and the passage is equally true. Ultimately, they’re all limited and limiting. As you point out, freedom comes from a clear and focused mind.
Please keep up the great work on your blog, and take care!
Dear Alicia,
Thank you for your eloquent reply and congratulations on your upcoming marriage and your first child. I imagine that you have a thousand things coming at you from all directions. Focus certainly helps. I do recall that quote from “A Study in Scarlet”. Of course, the ability to do that takes tremendous discipline, and the ability to let things take their course. One of my favorite Tao quotes is from Verse 15:
“Do you have the patience to wait ‘til your mud settles and the water is clear? Can you remain unmoving ‘til the right action arises by itself?”
That, too, allows things to simplify.
All the best to you.