THE JOY OF SIMPLICITY

Sometimes when I am in the midst of something that is fun or exciting, I can feel inexplicably empty – as if I am not touched by it. Like feeling intensely alone in a crowd. It is as if the outside world is not fulfilling. One day I realized that a lot of the stuff that I believed to be “fun” was just filling the space and that I really didn’t want it anymore. I would take my leave and go home to sit in silence, watching the sky and meditate and find my soul full again. How much time I spent just running around outside myself, trying to experience as much as possible.

What comes to me is the notion of people who have nothing physical; how they find joy in the smallest things; a song, togetherness, the beauty of a tree… how laughter comes easy to them even when they are hungry. The joy of simplicity. It is not simply about being in the moment, it is also about being in the Self.

The other day I was sitting with one of my, now adult, children and she was telling her friend about her childhood. We didn’t have much at the time; no computer or video and the TV worked intermittently depending on the weather. The children used to make up plays with costumes, songs and stories, showing them to us. They created whole worlds in the barns and the forest. We played boardgames and told stories. In a way we lived a very old-fashioned life. The friend of my daughter looked astonished and surprised by her reminiscing; he had grown up with video-games, game-boy and computers and found her childhood utterly old-fashioned and strange. I think she, for the first time, looked at her childhood from another perspective (I remember her complaints about our lack of “things” at the time…) and then she looked at her friend and said; “I had the happiest childhood ever!”

Boredom and the lack of things is the mother of invention and creativity, which is a great source of happiness and it has nothing to do with the outer trappings, it resides within. I have learned from experience that nothing outside of me can make me truly happy if it is not connected within, but it took some time.

And you know; sometimes you meet somebody who just exudes contentment and you feel happy and safe with them, as if all is okay in the world and you lack nothing. Everything is easy and you are fully accepted as you are, no matter who or what you are. These people make us feel whole because they are whole.