“I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.” Lao Tzu
I just finished watching season 3 of Succession. It was the culmination of 29 depressing episodes of shameless depravity. The series is a spoof on the Rupert Murdoch family dynasty and their polluting effect on the news media. As the title suggests, the plot revolves around the children’s jockeying for power to assume the throne of this media empire before the founder, Logan Roy, retires, recedes, or returns to ashes. Almost all the characters are trapped in and addicted to a way of life that will eventually burn them. The more they “win” the unimportant battles of life, the more they “lose” the important ones. In the case of Succession, the most likely scenario in Season 4 is that they will lose both – there’s a lesson there for all of us. The series highlights the complexity of living in the present and how life could be so much fuller if we choose a simpler path.
Coincidentally, I just finished reading The Sentence, by Louise Erdrich. This book continues Erdrich’s poignant and revealing analysis of Native American culture. In this story, a Native American woman, Tookie, is falsely accused of and arrested for transporting drugs across state lines in a dead body. After 8 horrific years of confinement, isolation and abuse she returns to society to start a new life. She marries the man who arrested her, finds work she loves in a bookstore, and is haunted by a ghost who torments her day and night. The story takes place in Minneapolis during the George Floyd protests and the pandemic crisis. Erdrich brilliantly revisits the history that contextualized Tookie’s and Floyd’s tragic lives. We are confronted with the horrific events of the past that taint our image of who we are. The book unsparingly confronts the truths of genocide and slavery that we wish would stop haunting us just as Tookie wishes her ghosts and memories would quit haunting her. Thankfully, Tookie is able to return to a simpler life that gives her solace. Sadly, George Floyd never got that chance. A door opened for Tookie; it closed for George. The book highlights the complexity and pain of confronting the past particularly when a simpler path could have avoided all that trauma.
Serendipitously, I also finished reading Anomaly by the French author, Letellier. (Spoiler alert: this summary may tell you more than you want to know before you read the book). This sci-fi thriller spins a tale about an Air France flight from Paris to New York that landed once in March, 2021, and then again in June, 2021, with all the same passengers, crew and DNA. The problem is that the people on the March flight still exist, but they now have a double. Yup, many questions: Who created these doubles? In this high-tech world, can people be reproduced like books? How are these doubles going to relate to each other? What should governments, religious leaders, and all of us make of such a bizarre situation? To say the least, these questions are a bit unsettling.
For me, the main theme was: What kind of crushing reality will it take for us to wake up and confront our illusions about who we are and the world we inhabit. I appreciated how Letellier developed the characters during the whole book and then showed how their “doubles” made them confront the illusions they had about themselves. My favorites:
- When the 60 year old architect having an affair with a much younger woman looked at his double, he was shocked by how old, wrinkled and unattractive he must be to younger women.
- When an author confronted his own suicide between March and June and what must have brought him to that point, he had to grapple with how to use that understanding to change his life. Talk about an after death experience!
- When a woman got pregnant between March and June, she had to come to grips with sharing her baby with her double.
- When a hired killer had to kill his double in order to preserve his secret life, he had to confront the extent of his evil.
- When a rock star met his double, he turned it into a plus by starting a duo.
- When Joanna fell in love between March and June, she was confronted with the reality of sharing her lover with herself.
The book highlights the complexities of how life may unfold in the future due to technological and cultural revolutions. If the shocking sci-fi realities don’t shake us up enough to confront our illusions, I don’t know what will. And that’s the question this post poses. At what point will the realities of our past, present and future (climate change, nuclear war, racism, gun violence, toxic media, etc.) cause us to pause and reconsider the paths on which we are racing; and perhaps open the door to a simpler life.
Here’s what simple:
- We need to confront the shocking reality of our past complete with its genocide, slavery, racism, sexism, and power grabs.
- We need to confront the shocking reality of our present complete with its toxic trappings of materialism, militarism, machoism and power grabs.
- We need to confront the shocking realities of our possible future complete with its climate change, authoritarianism, gun violence, vigilantism, on-going racism and sexism and power grabs.
- We need to find a path to simplicity that leads us to harmony and healing.
What does that path look like and how do we find it.
As I approach age 80 (3 years to go), I have been striving to simplify my life and find more harmony. We sold our house and now live in a small condo. We got rid of most of our accumulations over the years. We chose to focus on local issues where we may be able to make a difference. We make seeing our children and grand-kids our top priority. We try to walk wherever we can. We pursue experiences instead of possessions. We prefer presence to presents.
Drawing on the last post I wrote, I think simplicity has a lot to do with shifting our mentality from greed for more to gratitude for what we have. It means giving thanks for what we have in front of us in every moment instead of desiring something we are missing or might get in the future. As Lao Tzu taught us way before our lives became so complex, the three greatest treasures are simplicity, patience, and compassion. Ahh, life would be so much simpler if those values became more real in our lives. And life would be so much more meaningful if we could see our past, present and future realities as a backdrop for the boundless possibilities of each moment. May it be so.
Here’s to more simplicity, patience, and compassion in 2022. And yes, a little justice as well.
Also published on Medium.
Thanks Ricky! Happy New Year!