You'll have questioned gardening with reference to perhaps a Zen garden, and you may then have referenced to technology and thought 'well, it makes life easier/more simple' but look again. Complexity is how things intertwine and together the sum is greater than the parts so even in a perfectly minimal garden there is a greatly complex network and getting organic about it, no collection of roots, fungus, minerals and worms can ever be said to be "simple".
Taoism speaks commonly of simplicity. I can see clearly how if humanity resisted the urge to get complex and see growth as positive and if they instead chose willingly to not grow and to only take on new ideas that helped all and at no expense to anything from community, to environment, then the world as a whole would be in a much better and safer place.
Were the wise Taoists aware that complexity is inevitable? Were they fully aware of the 2nd law of thermodynamics? Probably yes they were in their own way just as we are too, we may well be drawn to complexity but see the huge benefit of simplicity, they as we can could see that complexity comes along anyway, societies, children as they develop, spare rooms, galaxies and gardens grow constantly in complexity. Maintaining simplicity even as complexity takes its natural path is wisdom indeed.
It is not too late to embrace simplicity, you do not need to allow pessimism to scare you off and have you think that "we've gone too far!" you can instead see that simplicity can not win against complexity but the inertia it offers and the peace of mind it provides are of great benefit to you and all. You'd be better off to live simply and peacefully in the face of epidemic complexity than to fight back. As you'd be better not to place a spoon in an ocean to fight the tide.
This is a TRT echo post where I repost posts I have made on TRT back here on my home blog. See more: Index.
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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao
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