Blogs for Bathrooms

“I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately…”
- Henry David Thoreau, Walden, and Other Writings, p. 172

I asked a wise-in-the-ways-of-social media friend for advice about blogs. He said he liked ones that he could read in the time he spent in the bathroom.

I didn’t ask if for him that meant 250 words or a 1000, but I got his drift.

• Blog posts should be short.
• Easily consumed.
• Packed with nutrients for the mind to digest.
• Quickly completed.

Kind of like ideal political campaigns, I suppose.

I have just a few areas I plan to focus on over the coming months. One is to write regularly, as you see here. Another, like a good blog post apparently, is to simplify.

One of the first actions I took once deciding I would concentrate on simplification was to buy books about it. Not one, not two, not three. More.
Another was to subscribe to online sources. So now I have not one, not two, not three people sending me their newsletters, blog posts, free documents. I have more.

As is my wont, in order to simplify, I complexified. I wish I were better at just looking for “the answer” so I could be done with it but that is not my natural approach. Maybe I can do better.

That will bear some reflection during this year of simplification.

I do have some preliminary thoughts to share about this effort, which I am going to treat as a “practice”, meaning I’m not intending to reach a goal but to make simplifying a way of life.

First, there are many, many sources of online information. I had to go through a bunch to see what I wanted to peruse on a regular basis. Becoming Minimalist, for example, always has good advice and ties in loads of other sources. No Sidebar is also a welcome read. These are keeping me on track because they push information to me, reminding me regularly to “Keep it simple”.

Second, I am going to be playing around with the term that I hope will best describe this practice. Simplify is good. It brings to mind Thoreau’s “Simplify, Simplify” (1981, p. 173). There is an ease about simplification. A lifting of weight from the shoulders.

I don’t really take to the term “minimalism”, though it is very popular and there is much to be learned from the people who use it. To me, however, it misses the richness of a term like “elegance”. Down the road, I will be exploring the idea of elegant living.

Third, the practice of simplification complements other areas of profound living we will be investigating. Topics like gratefulness, contemplation, silence, living in the present moment, pilgrimage, and more.

I have resolved to work toward a simpler, richer life. To eradicate as many activity traps as possible. To surround myself with, and to inculcate inside myself, that which is significant.

The rest can just be flushed down the toilet.

“Our life is frittered away by detail…Simplicity, Simplicity, Simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand;
instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumbnail. ”
- Henry David Thoreau, Walden, and Other Writings, p. 172

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Thoreau, H. D. (1981). Thoreau: Walden and other writings. New York: Bantam Classic Books.