The Soul Doesn't Feed Itself

Virginia and I have a shared Apple Note called “Adulting” - which isn’t nearly as fun as it sounds 😏. It contains, at last count, 31 tasks that are not related to business stuff or fun things. It is divided into seven categories, each task stack ranked by priority. They range from heavy lifts (“tax prep”) to don’t-forgets (“Replace wheel cover on Toyota”).

This list exists not because either of us are organizational nerds, but because modern life has a lot of damn moving parts. Without this system, my brain will try to carry all these tasks on little pieces of paper in the windstorm of life. Not good for neurotypical people, let alone an ADHDer. In short, simplicity needs a system.

That simplicity is hard is not a new idea. The concept of simplicity and not getting bogged down with modern life is mentioned by early Greek philosophers, Jesus, and Buddha, and other spiritual masters and great thinkers. Oliver Wendell Holmes famously declared, “For the simplicity on this side of complexity, I wouldn't give you a fig. But for the simplicity on the other side of complexity, for that I would give you anything I have.”

When you add up business tasks, scheduled meetings/events, adulting tasks, fun/recreation, and rest, there’s not much meat left on the bone for inner work; for things that are spiritually nourishing. It is alarmingly easy to get in a manically-busy-then-crash loop - especially if you over-stimulate yourself, then sleep suffers and being still is even more difficult because the idea of going inward feels kind of stupid and pointless to a frenetic mind.

Like a boa constrictor, modern life can slowly squeeze the joy out of life. In my experience, the only way out of this is to systematize simplicity. But here is the conundrum: simplicity takes time. Time to stop, time to get clarity, time to be still, time to carve out space for solitude and silence. It also takes time to implement some other anti-busyness antidotes like generosity, service, play, and creativity.

This is why time is the new wealth; the new privilege.