Is the simple life a chimera?

You know, for the longest time, I kept trying to simplify my life. It wasn’t until very recently that I started to realize just how unbelievably counter intuitive that was. We’re not here to have a simple life. That sort of life doesn’t exist, not even in Snow White and the seven dwarfs – over there, you still have to deal with wolfs, poison ivy and not to mention that old hag who keeps talking to household furnishings while she tries to peddle off her poison apples on a Sunday – what I mean to say Eva, is there is no such thing as a simple life – I mean, if you think, you could do without the electrical grid and piped water – and just reduce everything down to candles and the morning walk to the well – be my guest. But even in that seemingly simple paradise, it has to be incredibly complicated – I mean, say what you like Eva, but water in a plastic jerry can weighs a ton – and even if you manage to lug it all the way up to this hill, there isn’t enough to wash your ass with it – so how simple can it fucking be, when you don’t even have a quart to wash your bum? Either that or a hernia will get you. And if that doesn’t get you, maybe the crocs in the river will – so this whole idea of living a quaint simple life is all bullshit. I mean if you think real hard about it; so hard that your brain has to hurt or that you develop one of those nervous tics, we as a species can never ever lead a simple life – I mean you could put me in cave lighted by animal lard, but even then it ain’t simple – because all sorts of things are going through my mind – no Eva, that can’t be right.
We are here to do the things we have committed to do, and sometimes those things that we do are just filled with what I call the tiny slices of death; you know Eva, that sensation that comes when you believe that nothing ever changes – where every day seems to be a repetition of yesterday and the only thing that really changes is the forgettableville stuff – like how your fingernails seem to be growing or that your toothpaste is thinning out – but somewhere in this litany Eva, that’s really complicated and challenging is the idea; we have chosen to do these things – not because they are challenging or that it edifies us in any way. And therein lies the plight of those who may believe that simplicity holds the truth to happiness. Human time does not turn in a circle; it runs ahead in a straight line, that’s if you’re lucky Eva – but life isn’t like that, people die, sadness comes, sickness turns it’s evil eye on health and even if we find ourselves prancing around like those Von Trap’s in the Sound of Music – in that paradise we may well have to contend ourselves with the oppressing reality – there may well be a serpent that lurks somewhere in that so called paradise – that’s why life cannot be simple; that’s why man cannot be happy: happiness is the longing for repetition – and man by his very nature abhors the grinding sameness where each day unfolds exactly as the last – the only difference Eva is perhaps the morning newspaper that comes through his door or the new tie that his boss sports on a Monday morning.
No life is intrinsically difficult, complex and vexing – but don’t feel sorry for yourself; only those who never married their dream man or girl do that – just suck it all in and take it for what it is, the good, bad and the ugly; trust me Eva, you’re be happier for it. Because at least you know the nature of the beast and that’s something you can work with. Instead of yelping now and then like some distressed collie that’s rolling over her tongue, just because things don’t seem to turn out the way, it’s supposed too. Trust me….you’re be happier person for it.

Darkness 2011