DAY 585

in {and out} Week 20: Yellow

Often the simplest solution can be the best one. Simplicity is a good ally of logical reasoning, of functionality, decision making and problem solving... not to talk about planning, but we insist on forgetting it.

This tendency has to do with the way we have been brought up,  with all the bad habits of the educational system and -obviously- with our ego's vices. This makes us prone to think that simplicity and naturalness don't make a good impression in others and we rather opt for a rehearsed complication.

As an analytical introvert and part of an academic institution which praises affectation and can obscure the easiest things, I have been a very good friend of complexity.

But once I started my inner work simplicity gained relevance... maybe because all the sources I checked considered it extremely important, in fact, it seemed to be an article of faith. To be honest, in the very beginning I found this kind of veneration ridiculous, whys should I choose it when I could opt for intricate thoughts, answers or strategies?.

But I persevered (probably because I also found the concept intriguing) and one day I went across Zen Buddhism and I acknowledged that I had found a tailor-made philosophy. Simplicity started to pervade my thoughts and my way of feeling:

 What could be more appealing than keeping it easy in the presence of life?
What could be more poignant than staying bare, pure while feeling bewildered?
What could be more impressive than acting with ease regardless of paradoxes and confusions?.

Little by little, I started to accept its significance and I realized that it was the ultimate sophistication. I also understood something that before I hadn't even conceived: simplicity is not a response in the face of an entangled life, it is a way to make evident that life is much more simpler than we like to think, it is foreseeable and comprehensible and clear as long as we don't want to change it.

This has been a great lesson. Even so, my old fondness for labyrinthine alternatives still reappears from time to time. Tiny relapses, you know… so I've been a bit embroiled in rambling thoughts about this entry of the project. And then, one morning, two words came to my mind: Lemon Yellow. And these two words clarified it all.

 The simpler, the better.

This entry is part of a project I am developing with my friend Montse Gallardo. We´ll share a photo every week during 2015. Her photos will be always taken outside and my photos will be indoor shots only. We have created a Facebook page: In and Out. 52 weeks where you can see all the photos of the project.