SIMPLICITY AND HAPPINESS

One of the hypothoses I like to think I’m testing by simplifying my life is that simplicity leads to happiness. It’s much touted by minimalists and “Zen” philosophers, but is it true? For any given value of truth.

(I put the quotes around Zen because a little research points to a widespread confusion over what Zen is really about. The East seems to think the West has mixed it up with minimalism and is missing at least part of the point, but this isn’t a debate in which I wish to engage right here and now).

The argument goes that it’s the little moments that lift our mood – a stranger’s kindness or comedy, a pet, a child, a moment of clear sunlight, a pound coin on the pavement. Therefore, the argument extrapolates, happiness is to found in simple things, in simplicity itself.

I’m not sure if I can agree. For a start, a lot of the simple little moments that lift my mood are relatively random, and it may be the randomness that appeals and makes them stand out rather than their simplicity.

But I do wonder whether simplifying and streamlining my life would allow me more time and energy to notice the random moments that will lift my mood. Will simplifying everything make space in my life - and my head - for more of life’s simple little pleasures? I mean the little things – walking along the river, sitting in a café people watching, seeing the dogs in the park falling over each other (literally) for the same toys and treats in the morning, hitting an open road on my bike… I hope that’s how it works. It would be a nice bonus to the endless task of simplifying.

But back to the point: if happiness isn’t necessarily simple, and simplicity isn’t necessarily happy, then is there an equation here at all?

The idea of the equation probably traces back to various mis- and reinterpretations of the old Greek saw: meden agan – Nothing in Excess, which dates back too far for accurate accreditation. The Classical world was very keen on moderation, discipline and austerity – which is where it meets (briefly) with the general understanding of Zen.

The overarching idea is that excess is ultimately not that much fun (hangovers spring to mind), which is a fair point, but how did we get to equating moderation with simplicity? Is it that moderation implies a space outside/beyond any one thing, which allows other things, including happiness, space to exist? And in order to cut down to that ideal of moderation in all things, to hack away at any excess as being unessential, we have to simplify. There is no other process, whichever name we give it.