The Complications of Simplifying

Today one of the smartest people I know pointed something out that I’ve been thinking about all afternoon. I’m not sure how we got on this topic; I guess we were talking about doing something that completely defeats its own purpose (not hard to do when you work in the education realm) and he started telling me about an experience he’d had at the bookstore a few days ago. He was browsing through the essays section when a giant copy of Walden by Henry David Thoreau caught his eye. He said it was beautiful, hardcover edition, much more impressive than any paperback copy he’d ever seen. When he checked out the price, something else occurred to him about this particular edition of Walden. It was a fairly steep $30. Thoreau tells us in his chapter titled “Economy” that the house he built near Walden Pond in 1845 only cost him $28. And for the first time in my life I am able to say with the confidence (but not the pizzazz) of Ric Flair, “My shoes cost more than your house! Wooooooooooo!”

Maybe this is me being a self-righteous jerk, but it seems like buying Walden (the book) for more money than Thoreau himself bought Walden (the place) goes against the transcendental belief in economy. The guy that reminds us that our “lives are frittered away with detail…” and that we need to “simplify, simplify!” would probably be frustrated that his social/spiritual experiment has been turned into such an expensive and expansive affair. I think he would also be upset with the extensive annotations and footnotes that are a part of this edition. At least his teacher, Ralph Waldo Emerson, would be. Allowing someone else to figure out a work of literature for us doesn’t exactly line up with the advice that we should “trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.”

And then I thought about how many products and commercials I’ve seen lately that are using the idea of “simplify, simplify!” to market themselves. New cleaning supplies are the worst about making you feel like your life is messy, clunky, illogical, and cluttered without them. Your old mop, the one with the wooden handle that you have to rinse out every time you’re done with it. You know, the one that works fine? Well, it’s stupid. You need to simplify your life and buy this newer, more convenient mop. But don’t forget, you have to also purchase the mop stand so you can store it easily in your pantry. Oh, and you’ll need to buy the mopping pads because without those, the mop is really just a piece of plastic with no real cleaning capabilities. And since those mopping pads aren’t reusable, you’ll need to buy a new pack of them about twice a year, depending on how clean you like your kitchen floor. “Simplify, simplify!” by buying a bunch of new stuff. Or what about those giant space-vacuum bags that are advertised on the infomercials? You can put about twenty sweaters in them, vacuum out all the air, and suddenly 20 sweaters takes up no space at all. These bags help you “simplify, simplify!” by giving you more space in your closet to go buy 20 more sweaters. And once again I’m amazed by the evil genius and sheer effectiveness of marketing. Companies are convincing us that we need more stuff by playing off of our desire to have less stuff.

I guess it’s not fair for me to say this because it really depends on your definition of the word “simplify.” As someone who wishes she could move into a cabin in the woods for a few years and not have to worry about money, clothes, taxes, bills, oil changes, etc, to me simplicity is getting rid of my desire for material things, not just the things themselves. Each year when I do my fall and spring cleaning, I get disgusted and frustrated with how much stuff I’ve managed to accumulate in 27 years. I’ll purge and fill up a huge garbage bag with clothes and stuff that I don’t want anymore. I’ll go through my books and decide what I can’t see myself reading again, and I’ll take them out to the used book store and sell them. But if I decide to buy three new books while I’m at the book store, have I really “simplified?”

When I get to transcendentalism with my students, I ask them to pretend that they could only have ten material belongings and each year their lists are typically the same. This is a difficult concept considering that most of us have more than ten material belongings in our purses or cars. It’s interesting to see what “simplify, simplify!” means to them. Some kids go straight into this Mad Max mentality, as if the only reason why they would get rid of their belongings was if some post-apocalyptical setting required them to. (“If I could only have ten belongings, they would be a machete, rope, lighter, knife, sturdy boots, mossy-oak gilly suit, shot-gun, Bible, soap, and toothbrush. BAM!) There’s the techy kids, too. Computers, phones, iEverythings, and each year I get asked, “do chargers count as an extra item?” Then I have the students who take the completely sentimental route and they would keep photo albums, stuffed animals, quilts that were made for them. Their lists are pretty touching to read.

But then the idea of sentimentality throws a wrench in my desire to simplify. Some material things mean more to me than others because of the memory they kick up, or because of the person they are connected to. During all of my bi-yearly purges, it has never occurred to me to get rid of Mousy, the tiny stuffed rodent that my dad bought for me while he was on a business trip in Chicago, or of Mousy’s little sidekick Cheeser. They remind me of The Mousy and Cheeser Show that my dad used to perform every night under the curtains of my canopy bed. Mousy and Cheeser would tell each other jokes, ask how my day was, or sing songs . Their favorite was one called “Chicago.” It went something like this: “Chicago, Chicago, de-doo-de-doo-de-doo, de-doo-de-doo-de-doo.” (What my dad lacked in lyrical creativity, he made up for with charisma). No matter how much I simplify, I can’t willingly get rid of Mousy out of the fear that the memory will remain locked up somewhere tight. Then there are notes and cards that I’ve been given over the years by friends, family, and now students. I have an entire dresser full of mementos like this and I don’t know what to do with them…but I just can’t bring myself to throw them away. As I get older, I’m acquiring more and more sentimental items that will eventually fill up my house, so really simplifying isn’t quite that simple. It requires a certain amount of emotional detachment or emotional simplification that isn’t as easy to handle or do. I can’t exactly dump all of my emotions into a giant garbage bag and drop them off at Goodwill. And if Thoreau were to move out in the woods today, who’s to say he wouldn’t have a giant PODS storage unit out by Walden Pond full of things, sentimental or not?

When I had the chance to visit Thoreau’s woods a few summers ago, I wondered how he would have felt if he returned to Walden Pond today. I imagine that Thoreau would have practiced the art of “Civil Disodedience” when he was asked to pay $5.00 for parking. He might also get upset to see the crowds of people who paid to swim in the pond.

Walden Pond as Thoreau might have seen it.



Walden Pond today.


And I wonder how Thoreau would have felt when he realized that ironically, he’s the
reason why they are paying to swim in it.