Remembering what's important
Jun. 29th, 2006 10:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pjthompsonQuote of the day:
"The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak."
—Hans Hofmann
I absolutely agree with this. I periodically try to simplify, but I always forget and wind up re-complicating. It doesn't help that I think too much, always the over-thinker, the sharp knife of thought cutting through everything. All this over-thinking makes me forget to simplify.
I've had big wake up calls in my life: several deaths, a serious and prolonged illness. These things let you know in non-negotiable terms that life is finite and you must do what makes you happy, that simplifying will always make you happier than complicating. But the lessons? They never seem to last with me. The deaths don't get less painful but the sharp blows to your heart space farther apart and the white noise of existence comes in soon enough to obscure the simple message. That illness that took a big chunk out of what should have been the most productive years of my life eventually left me with the feeling that I am perpetually in catch-up mode. I got focused on things like reestablishing my life, coming out of a ten-year emotional coma and feeling I hadn't made any progress. I just wanted to have fun for awhile and got distracted by bright bangles in well-lit rooms. And I forgot to simplify.
I still tell myself to keep it simple, to live in the now, but it's impossible to maintain that for long—not with my personality. I've been free of that illness for some years now, so although I never forget that once there was a time and there could be a time again, I still and still and still forget what's important. Or let it get buried by the unnecessary. I float along in a dream, touch down now and then when someone grabs my toe and pulls hard, but I'm off again at the first loosening of vigilance, floating. All this dreaming makes me forget.
And I can't help wanting things that are not good for me. All this wanting leads to complications which lead to me forgetting.
Or maybe I don't want to remember. Maybe I like the gauze of dreams as a colored screen over everything, except when cut through with the sharp knife of overthought, or clenched-up with wanting. If I could learn to hover somewhere in the middle maybe I'd remember to keep it simple.
But as a friend of mine said this morning when I shared that Hofmann quote with him, "Whatever in life is ever, truly simple?"
I don't know. Like all matters of existence, it's a complicated issue.
"The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak."
—Hans Hofmann
I absolutely agree with this. I periodically try to simplify, but I always forget and wind up re-complicating. It doesn't help that I think too much, always the over-thinker, the sharp knife of thought cutting through everything. All this over-thinking makes me forget to simplify.
I've had big wake up calls in my life: several deaths, a serious and prolonged illness. These things let you know in non-negotiable terms that life is finite and you must do what makes you happy, that simplifying will always make you happier than complicating. But the lessons? They never seem to last with me. The deaths don't get less painful but the sharp blows to your heart space farther apart and the white noise of existence comes in soon enough to obscure the simple message. That illness that took a big chunk out of what should have been the most productive years of my life eventually left me with the feeling that I am perpetually in catch-up mode. I got focused on things like reestablishing my life, coming out of a ten-year emotional coma and feeling I hadn't made any progress. I just wanted to have fun for awhile and got distracted by bright bangles in well-lit rooms. And I forgot to simplify.
I still tell myself to keep it simple, to live in the now, but it's impossible to maintain that for long—not with my personality. I've been free of that illness for some years now, so although I never forget that once there was a time and there could be a time again, I still and still and still forget what's important. Or let it get buried by the unnecessary. I float along in a dream, touch down now and then when someone grabs my toe and pulls hard, but I'm off again at the first loosening of vigilance, floating. All this dreaming makes me forget.
And I can't help wanting things that are not good for me. All this wanting leads to complications which lead to me forgetting.
Or maybe I don't want to remember. Maybe I like the gauze of dreams as a colored screen over everything, except when cut through with the sharp knife of overthought, or clenched-up with wanting. If I could learn to hover somewhere in the middle maybe I'd remember to keep it simple.
But as a friend of mine said this morning when I shared that Hofmann quote with him, "Whatever in life is ever, truly simple?"
I don't know. Like all matters of existence, it's a complicated issue.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-29 05:46 pm (UTC)For me it has become a focus on trying not to be anxious about evreything, to enjoy more. It is slowly actually working. My blood pressure is lower than it was two years ago, yet I am working at least twice as hard.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-29 06:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-29 08:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-29 08:46 pm (UTC)