Clutter

There is too much clutter in my world. I try to do too much, I have too many books to read, too many CD's to listen to, to many things I am involved with, and too much information to process. As a result several things happen. Firstly, I neglect the things that I really enjoy. Secondly, I deny myself by drowning myself things. Things that I think I will like, or worse, things that I think other people will like in me. It's like I'm plastering over myself sometimes, and smothering the stuff that I'm scared to find out. Sometimes it's the fear of liking something or someone too much. If I throw myself at something too much, then there is the risk I will get sick of it. So I start taking an interest in something else. It leaves a sense of knowing a little about a lot but not knowing a lot about anything. (A bit like a Geography degree I once did...) Then clutter becomes an addiction.

This year I am aiming to live a simpler life. To live with and enjoy what I already have.

I am reminded of a story and a song. The story is told to me by my friend Justice, which was told to him by a monk at Taize. The story goes that a man has 100 university courses to choose from, but he can only choose one of them. The man is told that until he makes a choice, he has nothing. And when he makes the choice he has not lost 99 others, but instead he gained something. It's about making a choice and not being paralysed by information.

The song I am reminded of is Gone Fishing by Chris Rea. The words end with:

I’m gone fishing
Sounds crazy I know
I know nothing about fishing
But just watch me go

And when the time has come
I will look back and see
Peace on the shoreline
That could have been me

You can waste a whole lifetime
Trying to be
What you think is expected of you
But you’ll never be free

May as well go fishing

I'm no fisherman, but I love the sentiment of going to the river or the sea and doing nothing.

On my wall at work I have a picture of a staircase in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen. The picture below doesn't do it justice, but the staircase is a comprised of simple gently rising white stairs, with no artwork anywhere. To add anything would be to detract from it. It beautifully encapsulates simplicity for me.