Keep it Simple, Stupid

K.I.S.S:  Keep it simple, stupid.

Yet another schooling addendum easier said than done. In this moment, I am lying face down on a grassy lawn, exhausted, in a state of existential crisis. I am in a park, but my surroundings are deafeningly loud. Parents with children, university bells ringing, cars speeding by, construction scraping at the chalkboard of my eardrums — oh, and now the child is scream-crying… as if beckoning me to let out those same emotions, for Spirit knows I could definitely use the release.

What the fuck is this, New York City? It seems every place I escape to for “relaxation” ends up being far more stressful than my own home. Yet today I felt such a strong need to explore (or at least go to the same place I’ve been countless times before in a similar state of mind…)

My arms are cold, my nose is running, my patience is running out at this obnoxious child — and their parent, who is now mock scream-crying. I am starting to think their presence is some sort of humorous message from an unnamed god: a message I could attempt to decipher, except my head hurts from job searching, calculating the infinite iterations of possibilities, and now, trying every single calming tactic in my mental repertoire to be peaceful in this chaotic place of my body, and my mind.

“Life is complicated.” Perhaps the least helpful sentiment ever uttered, usually from the mouths of those who believe themselves very wise for offering advice through overused clichés. On the surface it is true — especially in this day of age, 8+ billion people strong, technology and globalization, natural resource shortages n’ shit. But before we existed on this planet, I can imagine it was pretty simple. Sure, the atmosphere was changing, life was forming, evolution was hard at work. But none of that required any thought, any “ingenuity.” It just happened.

We, on the other hand, have come to believe that life is a game we play — another useless opinion, considering NO ONE EVER WINS. Instead of seeing life as it is — just being life, chillin’, billions of years, no worries — we want to place objects and people and places into categories and describe them with vocalizations which only serve to deduct the Sacred from this Gift of Life.

Language divides us.

We want to count and integrate and hypothesize and fuck up and succeed and realize every discovery is a double-edged sword with the capacity to create and destroy.

We divide us.

We kill us — ourselves, and others, through our unhealthy and uninformed actions and inactions. If life is complicated, that is because we have made it that way. Whatever happens to us, is a consequence of some foolish thing we have done before. Is that not Simple cause and effect?

“Problems are made to be solved.” Well, yeah, because humans literally make problems. My entire degree is the science of figuring out solutions to the dumb shit my ancestors did, and my current earthlings continue to do. Including myself. It all seems so laughably pointless. But the closer I look at the paradox of the thing, the less complicated it actually becomes…

In devising a way out of my migraine, blurry vision, and nausea, self-imposed by worry and doubt and confusion, I realize that nothing I know now will help me. Knowledge, even put into practice, cannot fix a problem in and of itself. For — here’s the kicker — there is no such thing as a problem. Nothing is good nor bad. Everything is where it is meant to be, at any given time.

The impulse to ‘fix’ is programmed into my being. But that skill only behooves me under pressure. When I need to ace a test, I’ll be sure to have my thinking cap on. For now, as the wind bites at my cramped fingers and I acquiesce to the weirdness of this day and of human existence and life, I would like to just embrace my inner nature, stop ‘pursuing’ my dreams, and simply let life happen.

Complexity can K.I.S.S. my ass.