Simplicity isn't always simple

Different yardsticks

There are many yardsticks that can be used to measure simplicity: lower cost, lower ecological impact, lower stress, more time, more attention to relationships, more personal satisfaction. Since people seek simplicity for a number of reasons--spiritual, economic, environmental, personal--different people will give different weights to these ways of measuring. What simplifies one person's life may seem complicated to another.

For example, to some people, having a dishwasher makes life simpler because it does a daily time-consuming task easily and conveniently. Does simplicity mean you have to wash dishes by hand?

In the same way, it can be argued that having a car is simpler than adapting to a bus schedule and waiting for transfers; that throwing a pre-cooked meal in the microwave is simpler than cooking from scratch; that tossing everything into the garbage is simpler than separating food waste and hiking out to the compost pile with that stinky pail.

It can seem simpler to buy packaged food in the supermarket than schlepping along containers to fill from bulk bins at a co-op--and certainly more so than toiling in the garden to grow vegetables and in the kitchen to can, freeze and dry food grown at home.

So why are we calling this "simple living" when it really isn't simple? My answer is that we are talking about two different meanings of the term "simple"--in fact, two opposite meanings.

Mindful, sustainable, connected

People who choose this kind of simplicity desire to live in daily awareness of the consequences of each act, and seek to minimize their impact through living closer to the source of life and reducing the processes that separate them from that source. They seek to live mindfully and sustainably.

People who live this way are inevitably going to reduce their reliance on consumer products to meet their every need and instead rely more on their own skills and abilities, including their imaginations, on other people and on their community.

Time-saving, labor-saving, convenient

This twisting of the meaning of simplicity is a perfect example of the way consumer society distorts traditional values to fit its own limited ends, which of course are to encourage ever-increasing consumption, self-centeredness, individualism and the fulfillment of all needs and wants through the purchase of products.

By teaching us that "simple" means "easy" rather than "basic" or "connected," the forgers of the consumer economy can reinforce in us the notion of valuing our time in terms of money, rather than in terms of satisfaction or accomplishment, or the ineffable benefits of direct contact with the Earth, the source of all good things. They hope in this way to divert us from seeking satisfaction in relationships and closeness to the Earth and redirect us back toward seeking satisfaction in things we buy.

Be aware of efforts to confuse

However, I believe it is essential for people seeking simplicity to understand how the global economy and those who are benefiting from it are attempting to distort and divert the meaning of simplicity to reduce its threat to economic growth. It is essential for each person seeking a simple life to be intentional about their choices and fully aware of what they are choosing and why--that each choice represents a value to them, not an unexamined assumption or an unconscious acceptance of other people's values.

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