There was a time in a former life when I was enamored with complexity.
I was a tax lawyer who marvelled at the intricacy of “the Code.” I searched hard for situations to apply the most arcane provisions. I strained at gnats in order to swallow camels.
Why did I do that?
Look around you and find a greedy person (perhaps the mirror is a good place to start).
I’ll betcha that person leads a fairy complex life.
Donald Trump is a great example.
But is that really the way life is supposed to be lived? Layered in complexity?
Mired in complexity?
Stifled by complexity?
Complexity does little to engage, and much to hinder, the creative impulse.
Artists generally lead fairly simple lives…wouldn’t you say?
I look around at the ticos…the Costa Rican people, who’ve now become my adopted countrymen.
They model the simple life. The agrarian life. The life in which work is nothing more than a means to live. Rather that life being nothing more than a means to work.
Our capitalist system has undergone a financialization that fosters increasing complexity. We get ourselves mired in it…inextricably intertwined in it. It promotes great stress and strain…the type of which is really, really bad for us.
Why do we do that?
As I sit here looking out at the river and jungle that is my backyard these days, I begin to realize the pain and suffering that ego and complexity have wrought in my life.
I have allowed them to make my life an utter mess.
And our lives should not be like that. The simple life is the neat life. The ordered life. The easy to understand life.
I just have to shake my damn head and wonder how and why I allowed myself to get mired so deeply in complexity.
And wonder if I’ll ever be able to unravel from it…be free from it?
Our capitalist system leads us to believe that somehow all that complexity is a necessary evil. We need lots of it in order to dot all our i’s and cross all our t’s.
Contracts of 20 pages are better than just 1, right?
I mean, any lawyer will tell you (and sell you) that, correct? I know I would’ve!
It’s a jungle out there and you’ve got to be protected…you have to make sure your life remains mired in the complexity of nonstop accumulation.
Right?
Maybe not.
After covering our basic necessities, what do we really need to live a fulfilled life?
To live an impactful life?
To be joyful?
Perhaps the complexity…rather than facilitating such a life…is really inhibiting it.
I am grateful for the model of the ticos. They have shown me the joy in simplicity. It of course helps to be surrounded by all this natural beauty…which springs forth in mind-boggling abundance according to a simple law…
live and let live…
The harmony we find in nature should be emulated in our own natural lives.