“Simplicity has always been considered a mark of truth,” said Schopenhauer.

Is it true that life is hard? Aren’t we the ones who complicate it? Have we not created more and more needs, and consequently, more suffering?

The more needs man has created for himself, a sign of a high level of civilization, the less self-control he has, and the less free he has become.

Ernest Bernea

This complication/complexity that we seek outside our being, grinds us inside, because the thirst for enrichment has placed bitter burdens upon our being, slowing our progress and shortening our lives.… We live as if nothing is enough for us and nothing is enough for us.

We lie in wait to hunt everything we can, just to see ourselves better or more important than those around us. We have come to hunt each other down, believing that we have a place in the world only when others disappear, to make room for ourselves, to take their place.

Wanting more is a sign of evolution, but is the way we live a sign of evolution?

Man has confused complexity with complication. … That is why he is so miserable, that is why he is so difficult to understand, so difficult to satisfy. The man we are talking about is always dissatisfied, always rising up against life and given conditions. The complicated man is a difficult and miserable being.

Ernest Bernea

Beyond all the technology that surrounds us, haven’t we complicated our lives more, but without becoming better or more honest with each other, or even with ourselves?

The complexity in which we believe we live makes us struggle more and more, as if we had lived for thousands of years, forgetting that “Death hovers over (your) head.

Marcus Aurelius

What we experience day by day shows us that “the simple man” is equated with a stupid man, becoming the prey of the one who has anointed himself with all the ointments, of the one who has closed his soul in a world of arrogance, of false brilliance, of money.

The pure man is the prey of the cunning; the latter cannot live without prey. Public morality praises and rewards his deed, an act that is no different from that of a wolf chasing a deer across the white expanses of snow.

Ernest Bernea

It is difficult for us, and we are afraid to make use of simplicity. And yet, life per se is only simple: you are born, you live, and you die. We do not feel the moment of our birth, because our mothers suffer to bring us into the world. We are left to live, and we are left to choose whether or not to suffer on the way because we will die, although “death is the only irrevocable thing in our world”. (Carlos Castaneda)

Our ancestors did not have what we have today. They lived a simple life, but healthier and happier, knowing how to enjoy what was around them, even without the shine of gold or diamonds. They knew the truth of Simplicity.

He who truly lives in simplicity, ends up living in light, in beauty.

Ernest Bernea

Love, Manuela

Copyright © 2016-2025 manuela@inalove.world

References:

• Arthur Schopenhauer – Essays
• Carlos Castaneda – Puterea Tăcerii
• Ernest Bernea – Îndemn la simplitate
• Marcus Aurelius To Himself

The article has been posted on https://medium.com

Photo by me