Simplicity

[Five principles to design by](
http://bokardo.com/archives/five-principles-to-design-by/), by Joshua Porter:

> 1. Technology serves humans
2. Design is not art
3. The experience belongs to the user
4. Great design is invisible
5. Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication

I’ve learned most of these the hard way…take the shortcut by following the list!

Doing more with less

The fundamental challenge of our generation is to design lifestyles that everyone wants and the earth can support forever. [Buckminster Fuller put it well](http://www.geni.org/globalenergy/library/buckminster_fuller/buckyfullermemoriallecture.shtml):

> The possibility of a good life for any man depends upon the possibility of realizing it for all men. I must be able to convert the resources of the earth, doing more with less, until I reach a point where we can do so much as to be able to service all men in respect to all their needs.

Notes from The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up

[This book](https://smile.amazon.com/Life-Changing-Magic-Tidying-Decluttering-Organizing/dp/1607747308?sa-no-redirect=1) surprised me by actually living up to its title. I expected a collection of “life hacks” and instead found a crisp new philosophy of focus and priority.

### The Big Idea

> The best way to choose what to keep and what to throw away is to take each item in one’s hand and ask: “Does this spark joy?” If it does, keep it. If not, dispose of it.

Decide which things in your life bring you true joy, and get rid of the rest. If something used to bring you joy, or you think it could bring you joy in the future, thats not good enough. Joyless items not only fail in their core duty of improving your life, but also block and distract from the things that do bring you joy.

This of course applies to physical items, but can be extended to relationships, jobs, and activities. Ruthlessly discard joyless things!

### 5 Favorite Quotes

> * When you put your house in order, you put your affairs and your past in order, too. As a result, you can see quite clearly what you need in life and what you don’t, and what you should and shouldn’t do.

> * When we really delve into the reasons for why we can’t let something go, there are only two: an attachment to the past or a fear for the future.

> * The question of what you want to own is actually the question of how you want to live your life.

> * The best way to find out what we really need is to get rid of what we don’t.

> * Human beings can only truly cherish a limited number of things at one time.

### Next Steps

I’m going to “tidy up” next week!

Think, wait, fast

> “What is it now what you’ve got to give? What is it
that you’ve learned, what you’re able to do?”

> “I can think. I can wait. I can fast.”

> “That’s everything?”

> “I believe, that’s everything!” – Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

The state of the world

> In my room, the world is beyond my understanding;
But when I walk I see that it consists of three or four hills and a cloud.

– [Wallace Stevens](https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/surface-things)

Capitalism as cancer

It’s been extremely successful; then again, it has to be:

> A capitalist economy, by definition, lives by growth; as Bookchin observes: “For capitalism to desist from its mindless expansion would be for it to commit social suicide.” We have, essentially, chosen cancer as the model of our social system.

[Ursula K. Le Guin](http://motherboard.vice.com/read/ursula-le-guin-future-of-the-left), quoting social ecologist [Murray Bookchin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Bookchin)

On surfboards and yachts

And being close to the water:

> Baldwin: How many sitcoms could you have launched with the imprimatur of your name on it? You could have your own channel. The Jerry channel.

> Seinfeld: Yeah. But I didn’t take that bait…because most of it is not creative work. And it’s not reaching an audience. You want to be on the water? How do you want to be on the water? You want to be on a yacht? You want to be on a surfboard? I want to be on a surfboard.

> Let me tell you why my TV show in the ’90s was so good…In most TV series, 50% of the time is spent working on the show, 50% of the time is spent on dealing with personality, political, and hierarchical issues of making something. We spent 99% of our time writing, me and Larry.

– [Jerry Seinfeld with Alec Baldwin](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTz6GaNKiYY)

Sitting quietly

> I have often said that the sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his own room. A man wealthy enough for life’s needs would never leave home to go to sea or besiege some fortress if he knew how to stay at home and enjoy it.
Blaise Pascal, Pensees, VIII, 136

*Update*: apparently [sitting alone is so unpleasant that people would rather give themselves electric shocks](http://www.nature.com/news/we-dislike-being-alone-with-our-thoughts-1.15508).

Simplicity and decisions

> You’ll see I wear only gray or blue suits,” he said. “I’m trying to pare down decisions. I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make.” He mentioned research that shows the simple act of making decisions degrades one’s ability to make further decisions. It’s why shopping is so exhausting. “You need to focus your decision-making energy. You need to routinize yourself. You can’t be going through the day distracted by trivia.” – [Barack Obama, via Michael Lewis](http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/2012/10/michael-lewis-profile-barack-obama)

Kevin Kelly’s faith

[Some pretty unique ideas, mixed with very traditional creeds](http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/article_print.html?id=93174). As might be expected from one of the world’s foremost technology philosophers.

> God has given us free will—true free will, not a phantom free will—and he wants us to surprise him. We are here to surprise God…

> I seek to find those technologies that assist me in my mission to express love and reflect God in the world, and then disregard the rest. But at the same time, I want to maximize the pool of technologies that people can choose from, so that they can find those tools that maximize their options and minimize the rest…

> When we make these virtual worlds in the future—worlds whose virtual beings will have autonomy to commit evil, murder, hurt, and destroy options—it’s not unthinkable that the game creator would go in to try to fix the world from the inside. That’s the story of Jesus’ redemption to me. We have an unbounded God who enters this world in the same way that you would go into virtual reality and bind yourself to a limited being and try to redeem the actions of the other beings since they are your creations.