It Should be Simple

You always want to make the first line perfect, but just take off walking, and usually it is. Or at least you get somewhere, instead of sitting around paralyzed in some kind of terminal indecision, unable to succeed or fail, because the page is still blank. Nothing to fear when you’ve put nothing on the line. 

Nothing to lose, yet nothing to gain, either.

For years now, i’ve had a sign hanging within sight distance of my work area that reads, “SIMPLIFY” in bold red letters. Always hoping that one day it will sink in, surely bound to imprint on me by sheer repetition alone. 

I’ve been seeking to take the myriad of things that I do and distill them down into some sort of digestible form. Both for me and others. “Infinitely curious” often means “spread pretty thin” in modern parlance. 

I am amazed there were Renaissance men who were masters at so many different things. I always longed to be a modern Renaissance man, as I always felt the sobering nudge of “how’d they ever find the time”? 

Sure, it was because they were not nearly so pulled in every direction by the lure of mindless technological distraction, losing their evenings and weekends in the self-indulgent pursuits of games, stories, and competitions. Or were they, only in a less technological context? 

Still, it is utterly amazing what they were able to accomplish in their lifetime. Though i strive for this ideal, the burnout is real. 

Because life is such that it is— a dizzying blur of things coming at us faster than we can even process them— I often find myself day dreaming about a life that is a little simpler, or at least to simplify the way I do things. Keeping things organized and manageable, so that less time is spent trying to pull all the pieces together. 

That is what has caused the shift in my life away from ever-changing social media platforms, chaotic cultural landscapes, and incessant time wasting activities that drain the life and productivity from even the most determined of us.

SIMPLIFY has been a mantra I have to keep revisiting, as even being so well-intentioned, I drift back into the unraveling patterns ingrained in us all at this point— to be scattered and unfocused.

So I created this website to be a hub for everything that cycles around in my life. I find that often I will cycle through passions, able to give my full attention to things only in incremental measures. 

All real pursuits require a complete immersion to do them any kind of justice, so instead of half-ass doing everything, I completely immerse in a given passion for a period of time, making real progress and gaining some ground, before exhausting it for the time being, and moving on to another passion that needs some of my time and attention, so that one day it may be self-actualized.

Though this approach takes me longer to actually get anywhere, it affords me the opportunity to tune in to the things that really drive me as an individual and creator. It’s ok to not focus all of your attention on just one thing. At least that is what i tell myself.

So it is, this website helps me focus and not feel so scattered. Putting it all in one place, instead of spread out over 14 different online platforms just makes more sense for me. If you find me— it’s meant to be— if you don’t, then it’s just not. I’m ok with that. Let synchronicity lead the way.

SIMPLIFY. Maybe one day it will sink in, if by sheer repetition alone. 

until later, friends