Welcome to day 17 of my experiment: Going through the Valley of Despair.
Simplicity is not about having little content or adopting aesthetic or material minimalism. Simplicity is the ability to reduce complexity without losing what is essential. In other words, simplicity is summarizing complexity with precision.
To be simple, one must first understand one’s own complexity — which is why simplicity requires maturity, discernment, and responsibility.
That’s why simplicity is, in fact, complex and rare. It does not waste time, attention, emotion, or decision-making — on the contrary, it restores vital energy.
We will rarely encounter someone young who is truly simple — and that’s a good thing, because youth is not meant to be simple. Youth is meant to dive headfirst into one’s own inner complexity in order to find one’s essence. Excessive simplification early on can do the opposite of what it intends: delay, or even eliminate, the ability to be simple later in life.
To be simple is to live aligned with what is essential to you, with as little internal friction as possible. It is, therefore, to live in the certainty of a genuine understanding of your own essentiality.
Till tomorrow,
