Just be simple

I listened to my iTunes library on shuffle yesterday afternoon while trying to mapout my last essays of my college career. I have a few more days to write them. One of my favourite songs came on, and it was everything that I needed, for the essays’ sake and my own- Songs: Ohia’s “Just Be Simple,” where he says “just be simple” over and over at the end. That utterance is no less powerful than somebody screaming drama over some over-orchestrated mayhem. Simplicity is the nearest to truth- for the most part. Truth is beautiful. I recognized that this is a time to be simple.
For simplicity’s sake, I’ll state what that “really” means for me. It means simply being good to people (you, the reader, included ). It means approaching the block/plexiglass/zinc plate with a singular vision unclouded by considerations of what would or should look good here or there. It means writing a poem and not feeling a need to add this or that device here, make such and such metaphor there. Maybe a singular metaphor in a whole poem is good, as long as it’s true. Simplicity is continuing to eat right, excercise, work, keep a clean house, create, and be happy. Happiness and contentment are simple, and what more could one want?

Perhaps this post concerns my art the most. I’ve worried at times as of late about over doing my art. I only do it when I get nervous about simply putting something out there- an idea, an image, whatever. Sometimes the impulse arises to clutter things so as not to over expose the honest truth of the mind. The impulse must be erased, and I’ve had some astounding success the last couple of weeks with some prose experiments, poems, my essays, and my new blocks/plates I’ve been cutting. It’s a new period in life with this principle.

So, if I could make any appeal to my dear reader here, it would be this: my friends, be simple. Love, create, act, and speak simply. Forgive those complexities that seem to drive away and apart, for they are only phantoms we summon to guard the essential truth. We forget that what is simply true can never be damaged. You’ll think it odd to read this coming from me- perhaps I have transgressed simplicity worse than any. I have concealed, hidden, denied, and attacked the honest. Still, we choose who we are everyday, and even I make this new choice.

Perhaps this was my own Sunday morning sermon- a prelude, if you will Given my new outlook, it would be dishonest to apologive for that

I’ll leave you with a final statement on this topic: everyone reading this, you have been good to me, and I love you for it. It’s been good times lately. It will be even better times- new adventures, new opportunities, new everything.

Keep it real