Project Management III

Simplicity is hard to come by. What is not hard to come by is what is not simple. The non-simple, the confused, the self-contradictory, the multi-faceted, the rich-context-dependent, the puzzling, the incomprehensible, the non-self-same, the difficult, the disputed, and the deep: this seems more around all the time.

At the same time, the simple is often boring. It asks to be forgotten so that one can attend to other things. Is this why I am so bad about washing the dishes as I use them? Who can know a thing like this? I have been unequal to this question for years. Unfortunately, the demands of life are such that one cannot pause life to concentrate on this question of the dishes, however difficult it may be to answer satisfactorily. It is much more likely that even bigger, and much more practical demands will demand attention. Actually washing dishes, for example.

And in this time the question of dishes drifts in and out of one's consciousness. It is not always pressing, but does live on as a kind of persistent failure. And having an unresolved worry like this in the background is not consistent with simplicity of living. So which is the simpler path, then: to reject the many spiderweb-like dead-ends of wrong-headed-because-malformed-ill-informed-and-at-some-level-malingeringly-purposeless meditation, or to engage them to no good end, vainly hoping for something other than the mere performance of self-reflection, for something that was not there in the beginning, and which product of reflection changes future thinkings and doings? Of course, I've assumed without demonstration that thinking about this question from the standpoint of simplicity is the appropriate approach. How much time would it take to properly argue the relevance of that?

When I say simplicity I really only mean to invoke that which is most desirable for coming to terms with a course of action. Sometimes, the right answer is to walk away from a whole way of approaching things. Actually disinvest from rigid habits. But that takes help, I think, and there's no amounting of introspection that substitutes for what other minds and bodies can do.

Explaining the joke: is there a point to this reflection? An intended communication? There may indeed be no matter at hand, but I don't think so. The question I think I have been really asking is what is it to act as person? What are the possibilities and constraints for action? I suggest that inaction, hesitation, and self-doubt persistently frustrate purposes, and that I don't know the meaning of that moment when you find yourself at the point of reconsideration upon what to do next. I recognize, though, that I am drawn back to it again and again. So what I am doing now to grab onto something that seems like advancement or change on this project is to number these musings. How's that for progress?

Accompanying musical selection: The Talking Heads' "Road to Nowhere"