Unnecessary Things

Last night I helped LeeAnn edit an essay for school. I was reminded by the core message in Strunk & White's immortal style guide, Elements of Style. "Eliminate unnecessary words. I love words and it's difficult for me to eliminate them. And as I have mentioned in previous posts I have become enamored with a blog titled Zenhabits-Simple Productivity. The postings on this web log have helped me to identify more things in my life that would improve it--if they were eliminated.

Case in point: I believe that if I were able to catalog my entire waking adult life I would find that I've spent 5% of my time looking for things I need or want behind and under things I don't need and really don't want. Want proof? Here's my garage.


I like this web log so well I bought the author's print book: Zen To Done. (I got mine at Amazon.) In this appropriately brief book, I was treated to the notion that even too much food, and the fat it turns to, can be considered clutter. True enough. I'm a good 30-50 pounds overweight. Carrying that much weight in a backpack up a hill makes most people complain. Me? I carry it, pump blood through it, add another 50 pounds in a real backpack and then climb the hill. Trust me; fat's clutter. (I have a photo of me in a swimsuit on the beach in Antigua that I nearly inserted here. But since there are a couple people who read this I decided not to subject you to that.)
Today I got the coup d'etat to my guiding notion that clutter just happens in people's lives and there really isn't much you can do about it short of turning your whole life upside down. I found an audio copy of a book I read years ago: The Richest Man In Babylon, and I've been listening to it. (Great book. Simple and concise. Libraries have been written by authors who take the simple principles in it and then bloviate for dollars.) Here's the quote that shamed me concerning my tolerance for all things clutter in my life:

"If I set for myself a task, be it ever so trifling, I shall see it through. How else shall I have confidence in myself to do important things?"

I guess if I can't keep my garage clean how can I be expected to change the world? (Lately the world has a bitter need of being changed.) Keeping my hands in my pockets when I pass the candy dish has got to be counted a "trifling task" and so counts as another indictment.

The best parts of my life are at least partially buried in "unnecessary things".

Got to work on that.

Looking On The Bright Side

I was reading the Book of Mormon the other day and had begun to plow into "The Isaiah Chapters". I don't hate them as much as most people seem to--years ago I made a study of Isaiah and knowing a few language keys makes the book much less inscrutable. Anyway, I came to the 11th verse of the seventh chapter of 2 Nephi. (It's the same passage as Isaiah 50 in the KJV of the Bible.) "Behold all ye that kindle fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks, walk in the light of your fire and in the sparks which ye have kindled. This shall ye have of mine hand—ye shall lie down in sorrow."
I've always understood that this verse refers to people who refuse to look to the scriptures of the prophets for guidance, but insist on making decisions based on their own understanding and desires. But I have also understood it to be applicable only to cases of good vs evil.
There are times when I get a little discouraged. Those times usually come when I feel like I'm over-extended and have more to do than I can do, or that I have something to do for which I feel incapable. I don't guess I'm unique in this. This morning I was attending a little pity party for myself. It devolved to the point where I opined (to myself; when you invite others to your emotional self-flagellations they generally neglect to attend) that I was really a phony. That I had a few talents that I leaned on over and over so I could look good and get by, but really I was incapable of most things and was going through life pretending. Actually I was praying these things. God, it turns out, will attend the occasional pity party--he breaks them up. Mine was broken up this morning by having the above scripture flash into my mind along with the firm impression that every natural man leans on a few favorite talents and goes to work faking his way through life by over-relying on them. But that God possesses all talents in infinite perfection and has freely offered to support us with them until we are able to make them our own. But we, most of the time, insist on relying on our own strengths rather than coming up with the humility to acknowledge that we are incomplete and need help. It's like we were dumped in the ocean. God sends a motorboat to get us to shore but we insist on swimming. Then we plead for a life ring when we become exhausted. This is not the path of wisdom. But it's the path of the ego. It's the path that we know.

Relying on our own light is very much leaning uphill.

In my reading the past several months I keep bumping into the theory that we humans are connected to God: our source. The theme is tucked away in most of the ancient philosophies of the world. Some go so far as to say we are part of God. Others explain that we are living expressions of God Himself. Even some secular thinkers (I'm thinking of Maxwell Maltz of "Psycho-Cybernetics" fame here) insist that there is something in the universe that connects everything and everyone together. And that we have access to knowledge separated from ourselves by space and even time.
Christians believe this. Lots of them don't believe they believe it, but I don't see how a person can read John 17 and come away with any other understanding. Verses 21-24 sum it up but the whole chapter is of this theme:
21 That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
22 And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:
23 I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.
I recognize that all of us have a kernel within us that is a unique individual that has always been and will always be an independent intelligence. But all that we are that allows for us to interact with everything else and express ourselves, is an expression of something that connects us all, and makes us all one. Or at least was intended to .
It's the Ego, the I.D., the Natural Man, Fallen Man, whatever you want to call it, that sets up this construct of our knowledge and our thoughts and our possessions etc. and convinces us that "It" is "Us". Dr. Wayne Dyer, in "The Power of Intention" describes the ego as a drop in the ocean that insists that it is separate from the rest of the ocean, and even goes so far as to imply that it is the ocean.
Sometimes my little drop tries to accomplish things that it takes a whole ocean to do and that's when it throws the pity parties.


We waste time and emotion kindling fire and compassing ourselves about with sparks to see by when we could simply step into the daylight and see the world by the light of the noon sun.