Seek simplicity, and distrust it.
-- Alfred North Whitehead

⬆ #Wisdom #Quotes #AlfredNorthWhitehead #Simplicity

⬇ #Photography #Panorama #ChacoCanyon #Sunset #NewMexico

A quotation from Ellis Peters

Ellis Peters (1913-1995) English writer, translator [pseud. of Edith Mary Pargeter]
Brother Cadfael’s Penance, ch. 16 (1994)

More about this quote: wist.info/peters-ellis/75756/

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #ellispeters #cadfael #brothercadfael #consequences #cost #costbenefit #decision #decisionmaking #must #necessity #riskanalysis #simplicity

Incomplete. Forever.

For most of human history, you bought a thing, and it was yours, and it was finished.

That word is nearly extinct.

Nothing you own is finished. Everything exists in a state of permanent incompletion, permanently needing. Your phone needs updates, needs charging, needs storage cleared, needs passwords rotated.

That’s exactly it. I’m often talking about calm technology and that’s one key issue with stuff these days. But this point about finished makes my heart sink.

ɕ

Sedimentation and erosion

I have this image of our home as a bunch of related-rates problems: There’s inflow and outflow. Energy: In through my electric meter, out through lighting, waste heat and heating/cooling, water heater, etc.. Climate control: Heat flow in from heating/cooling system, the wood stove, the sun, versus losses through the attic, windows, doors, etc.. Mass: The balance of the rates of the flow of all the stuff.

Ever stop to think of that? Think of your home as a sealed balloon which has two, (or more of course,) doors, (garage doors count,) through which everything passes. Everything—no exceptions—passes in first, and then out second. Everything–every single thing, including the people–is only inside temporarily. The people come and go most frequently, (some pets might exceed some people I suppose,) and some things might remain inside for decades. But still, inside only temporarily.

You know that at some point you, (and everyone else if you share your home,) will go out for the last time. You might carry some things with you on your last exit, or you might arrange for someone else to come in, (and go out and in and out and in and out one last time,) to remove things after you go out for the last time. And of course eventually the entire structure will be removed and certainly at that point, everything you brought in—everything that was temporarily still inside—will go out at that point.

Where does everything you carry in from the market and grocery store go? Where does the furniture go? The books? The nick-naks? The packages and packing material from purchases? The clothes? The postal mail? The firewood you carry in is vastly more massive than the ashes you carry out; where does all that mass go?

Based on how the things around me make me feel, I know I have too much stuff. When I think of our stuff this way—as just a mass of stuff that’s temporarily inside our home—it’s much easier to keep my life under control. Too much stuff? …all I need to do is make sure more goes out than comes in, on average, and the problem will subside.

…and I can have fun with it. If something breaks, is worn out, or I’m done with it, that’s the outbound mass for today! Can I recycle this random thing? Can I FreeCycle this random thing? I no longer feel bad about sending things out, (wether that means landfill, recycle, giveaway, whatever… as appropriate.) Instead, I now find I feel bad about bringing things in. Each time I consider buying something, I think: Do I want to bring that into my life?

Quote of the day, 26 May: Venerable Margaret of the Blessed Sacrament

The Child Jesus wants us to seek Him alone, in simplicity of spirit, and the Divine Simplicity banishes from our souls all folly and depravity. No amusement: neither in ourselves nor in creatures. Nothing but Jesus, who is sought and served simply and in truth.

Venerable Margaret of the Blessed Sacrament

Conversations with Mother Elizabeth of the Trinity

Note: We recall the death of Venerable Margaret of the Blessed Sacrament (Margaret Perigot) on 26 May 1648 in the Carmel of Beaune, France. She had a particular devotion to the Infant Jesus and soon discovered that He entrusted her with a particular mission: to make him known as the Little King of Grace. Venerable Margaret died young, but devotion to the Infant Jesus of Beaune and his faithful disciple, Venerable Margaret, continues to this day.

Translation from the French text is the blogger’s own work product and may not be reproduced without permission.

Featured image: This detail from a portrait of Venerable Margaret comes to us from the Office of the Postulator General, Discalced Carmelites (Public domain)

Every successful SaaS I’ve studied started simpler than you think. Notion was a beautiful notes app. Canva was a simple design tool. They didn’t launch with 50 features. They launched with ONE thing done incredibly well. Your product doesn’t need more features. It needs one feature that makes people say "I need this." Strip. Focus. Ship.

#SaaS #Simplicity

Jamstack is at a crossroads. Developers are pushing back against a maze of tools and frameworks, craving the original promise of simplicity and speed.

- Less “build‑tool fatigue”
- More focus on static assets + APIs
- Cleaner deployments, easier maintenance

If you miss the “just work” vibe, the tide may be turning. #Jamstack #WebDev #Simplicity #OpenSource #Fediverse

🔗 https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMiigFBVV95cUxQRWVoZ2RsWUI3MWpIS19BaFg5cEVkR3BBYXF3Rlg5OE5BX2FNXzJQNHJVMnpvOVcyQlczd2JWNVRDUnVZSi1XRENlaHBXTjU4ZEJ2T3JYcmcxVW0tSlluTFRBZ3lQTk1Uc2I1SzRBNXY4R3k5amZFNm9ES05XOTM2Tk9aSE16U0swRkE?oc=5

You do not have to go anywhere

It seems to me that the most insidious difficulty facing our practice is complexity. Ritual, elaboration of any kind, stages and visualisations, devotions and liturgies are at best distractions from what is at root a most perfectly simple thing: returning to what we essentially are.

Andrew Harvey:

The Direct Path is the Path to God without dogma or priests or gurus, the Path of direct self-empowerment and self-awakening in and under God in the heart of life. You do not have to go anywhere or take a new name or sign up for expensive intensives to begin it; whether you yet know it or not, you have been on this path since the day you were born.

When you discover for yourself how real the Direct Path is and how it can transform you faster, and more completely and integratedly than any other, your whole life will change and you will discover with wonder and delight why you are here and what you are here for. You will start to become free from all the political, social, and religious systems that constrain you, with the freedom that is yours by right of being a child of God, the freedom of your divine nature and your divine truth, and this freedom and this truth will make you increasingly an empowered agent of change in every arena in the world.

The Direct Path, p. 12

Caryll Houselander saw this too:

Christ is everywhere; in Him every kind of life has a meaning and has an influence on every other kind of life. It is not the foolish sinner like myself, running about the world with reprobates and feeling magnanimous, who comes closest to them and brings them healing; it is the contemplative in her cell who has never set eyes on them, but in whom Christ fasts and prays for them—or it may be a charwoman in whom Christ makes Himself a servant again, or a king whose crown of gold hides a crown of thorns. Realization of our oneness in Christ is the only cure for human loneliness. For me, too, it is the only ultimate meaning of life, the only thing that gives meaning and purpose to every life.

Caryll Houselander (quoted in Richard Rohr’s The Universal Christ)

We do not need continually to be seeking things: all that we are, all that is, is right here in this present moment, as itself. Meister Eckhart’s Istigkeit, the open ground itself, is here, within each breath, within each phrase of birdsong from the open window. All we need is to be entirely present to what is here, now, always. “…[F]or only what is actually loved and known can be seen sub specie aeternitatis“ (David Jones)

Peter Russell:

In asking the question “Who am I?” we tacitly assume an individual self does indeed exist. As such, the question can mislead us, setting us up to look in the wrong direction — looking for ways to define ourselves. It can be more insightful to drop the “Who” from the question, and ask simply, “Am I?” The answer nearly always comes as a simple “Yes, I am.” Not “I am this or that.” Just pure “I am.” “I am” is the first-person form of the verb “to be.” It is our direct personal knowing of being. Not to be anything or anyone; simply to be, to exist — that sense of presence at the heart of every experience.

“Your own Self-Realization is the greatest service you can render the world.” (Ramana Maharshi)

How to Meditate Without Even Trying, pp.95-96

Strength train. Eat protein. Walk after you eat. The people who do all three don't look like they're aging.

#fitness #longevity #simplicity