Why We Fear Our Simplicity ⋆ LonerWolf

How often have you felt addicted to being, doing and being “more”? Deserving, successful or more awake to fill a need? Is what you do, what you say, and who you are fueled by a feeling of “not being good enough”?

This pressure to be “more” is only made worse by social media. This is amplified 1,000-fold by the hyper-communication we experience day and night: notifications, pings, follows, likes, follows, comments, and an endless stream of filler content that clutters our screens and our lives.

Before we know it, we’re stuck on a treadmill of self-improvement fueled by FOMO (fear of missing out) and toxic comparison (“I’m asking compared to them”). All this creates deep alienation and disconnection from ourselves.

I feel it almost every time I go on social media. And it is very automatic and subtle.

Recently, after a break of 4 months, I entered the field of social networks again as a way to find more readers to support this work. Let me tell you, it’s a mess here.

7-8 ads in 30 seconds, aspirational quotes, anger bait, beautiful people doing perfect yoga, dancing cats, aspirational memes, men wearing mala beads making green smoothies, videos of people in exotic destinations…the list goes on.

Is the lesson here? The novelty is for sale. Negativity sells. “Be more than you are” sells.

Simplicity and simplicity are not worth it. It’s boring, boring. This is, in part, I believe, because we are afraid of our own naivety. We want to be loved, validated and interesting.

But what if we turn 360 degrees and look at it differently?

What if a “boring” and “ordinary” life was the antidote to so much of our suffering and alienation?

In Nietzsche’s Zarathustra: Notes from a Seminar Given 1934-1939The famous psychiatrist (and let’s face it, mystic) Carl Jung has something powerful to say:

Most people can’t stand simplicity. There are many simple and humble people who would be fine if they were themselves, but they think they should be something better, they are not good enough; and so they begin to decorate themselves with feathers, and it is not wonderful and surprising. But they are amazing only when they are simple.

Sounds like a terrific review and diagnosis of today’s social landscape, eh?

What I find particularly profound is the last line: they’re only amazing when they’re simple.

We are biologically wired to imitate each other. Why are places like social media so addictive? Why “Keeping Up with the Joneses” is a thing.

But the one who chooses to be simple, to be content with his simplicity, adornment and bareness, is a real gem. This amazing thing.

Simplicity is it honesty. This is the most correct way, because you do not add anything to yourself. You’re going against society’s message of “buy, be, and have more.” You are defending your right to be imperfect, flawed, sometimes boring.

It’s pretty damn punk if you ask me.

So that’s a gentle message to remind you (and remind myself) today hop to be plain and simple. You don’t have to add anything to yourself to be loved.

You are worthy just the way you are.

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