Less is more

Less is more

I don't understand why some people think they should have whatever they want -- or, for that matter, why they want so much in the first place

Susan Schwartz, The Ottawa Citizen

Published: Sunday, August 05, 2007

I came late to Sex and the City, like other things, after the buzz had stopped.

Before it ended its run three years ago, I saw the show only occasionally. Now I watch it at least a few times a week in reruns. I have come to care about the main characters, the girlfriends, so naturally I have views.

I think Carrie made a mistake not marrying sweet, kind Aidan, for instance. I don't trust Big. And don't get me started on Aleksandr Petrovksy. I like the way Miranda and Steve show they care about each other and how Smith Jerrod is both a total hunk and a gentle, considerate person. And I like them all in small doses.

I could rent DVDs of complete seasons, I know, and whenever I'm at the video store I watch many people do just that. But I don't want to view shows back-to-back. I did it once, with Six Feet Under, and it turned me off the show for good. For all the imagination and cleverness of each episode, when watched in series, they started to bleed one into the other. Too much of a good thing.

Besides, I like looking forward to a favourite program; I relish the anticipation, wondering what's going to happen next in serial shows. All that is lost when you string a bunch together. It's why I'm not envious of friends who have TiVo to automatically find and record their favourite shows, why I don't want television on demand. I'm not convinced anything on demand is healthy.

But then, I'm someone who thinks less is often better than more, with obvious exceptions for things like health. I don't understand why some people think they should have whatever they want -- or, for that matter, why they want so much to start with.

"A jam-packed, maxed-out, full-to-the-very-top existence is the secret to an insanely happy life," Bonnie Fuller writes in The Joys of Too Much (Simon & Schuster, 2006), in which she encourages women to believe that they can have exactly what they want -- if only they know to go after it.

Aside from the fact that I don't agree -- telling people they can have what they want invariably sets them up for failure -- I happen not to believe there is joy in too much.

There is happiness, I believe, in appreciating what you have, and contentment in wanting less.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh, in Gift From the Sea, a small book of enduring lyrical meditations she wrote more than half a century ago, described how when first walking the beach of the Florida island to which she'd retreated, without family, to rest and recharge, she picked up shell after shell, greedily, weighing down her pockets. "I could not let one go by unnoticed," she wrote. "I could not even walk head up looking out to sea, for fear of missing something precious at my feet."

But once the bookcases and window sills of her small house were lined with shells, she began to discard, to select. When she left the beach after a few weeks, it was with only a handful of specimens.

"One cannot collect all the beautiful shells on the beach. One can collect only a few, and they are more beautiful if they are few," she wrote. "For it is only framed in space that beauty blooms. Only in space are events and objects and people unique and significant -- and therefore beautiful."

One of the things I like best about our summers is how little we need to wear, what a relief it is not to have to be all bundled up in scarves and boots, how the warm air kisses our skin. At home, I open windows, roll up rugs and walk on the bare floor. I like not having to fuss about fireplaces or furnaces. We eat lighter food; many nights I don't even turn on the stove.

Life seems simpler, clearer, more to the point. And making life simpler does for our minds what getting in shape does for our bodies, Robert Lawrence Smith wrote in A Quaker Book of Wisdom: it makes us feel more centred, more in control. And as I live happily without so much of what I think of as essential the rest of the year, I'm wondering: wouldn't it be better to try to learn how little we can get by with -- not how much?

Montreal Gazette

© The Ottawa Citizen 2007