Just enough rambling

Last night I stayed up too late to have any chance of doing a group ride this morning, so I slept in and lazed about and tried to get done some writing. Despite having performed several brain dumps to this blog this week I awoke this morning with a head full of ideas fighting to get out. I hoped this would be another morning of keenness and spontaneous productivity; instead I felt scattered. Those ideas were fighting their way out in no particular order or coherency, and I soon realized that I was fighting against my own words and wasn't sketching out anything blogworthy. So I donned shorts and a jersey, pumped the tires and went for a solo ride to clear my head.

I headed east against an unusual headwind to do the Paradise Valley loop. One pleasure of weekend rec riding is that I'm not encumbered with my usual, bulky backpack and can comfortably get flat-backed and aero. But my thoughts continued to jump around, and I was fighting against the bike. By the time I pedaled through the streets through the golf course my lower back was beginning to complain, which these days is an unusual occurrence. It was clear the ride was going to take some effort to salvage.

I finished the loop strong skirting around Mummy Mountain and detoured to Cholla Ln east of Camelback for its steep dead-end climb. It's a private road, and I really should stop using it. I've found a good way to make something of a bad ride is to pedal up something exceptionally steep, and Cholla is granny-gear steep. Afterwards I decided to finish with a full lap of butt-off-saddle climbing of the Tour de Camel around the south face. On the way home I realized I felt good; my back had loosened and my head was calm and clear.

***

Simplicitism has been on my mind a lot lately, largely because it seems to have stirred some curiosity in others and I've felt unprepared for explaining it in sound bites. This blog serves as the vehicle for my apology of the philosophy, but I don't feel good about my previous posts on the subject -- published and unpublished -- and I'm not so sure I like this one all that much. But I'm not going to wait for perfection in explaining it.

***

Simplicitism has been defined. It's about bringing into one's life the people and activities and things that enable fulfillment and happiness and about eliminating all else. It's a straightforward and practical philosophy, and I suspect that most people understand it and appreciate it when stated as so. But stated as so it doesn't explain minimalism and my rejection of so many common things. Why not own a car? Why not own a microwave? Or furniture? Or have Internet access? Are these not tools that make life easier, simpler?

Each thing can be explained only in its own case. I don't own a car because even though it got me places faster and no doubt smelling better, driving it made me feel unappreciative and wasteful. I don't own a microwave because they fail the caveman test^[*] and nullify foods' flavors. I don't own furniture because I sold it all before moving to Phoenix and since discovered it was all unnecessary. I don't have Internet access in my home because not having it is a good way to free up time by faking having self-control.

Ridding myself of things -- dropping off a box of stuff at Goodwill, hawking junk on Craigslist, or simply chucking stuff into the dumpster -- makes for a great one-time feeling; it's less stuff to worry about. But having fewer things is different. Having fewer things means having fewer distractions, and having fewer distractions means having to confront myself and having to reconcile with the world our incongruities.

I expect not ever to drop simplicitism, and yet it seems inevitable that someday I will drop the minimalistic aspect of it. My lifestyle makes a lot of sense for an ambling twenty-nine-year-old who remains in a sort of extended phase of post-adolescent self-discovery. At some point it will make less sense. When that time comes I will then rid myself of the minimalism to pursue the better thing.

^* The caveman test is roughly explained as follows. If something you put on or into your body was not at least somewhat regularly done so by cavemen, then the onus is to prove that the thing you're putting on or into your body is a good thing. This is a tough test to pass because cavemen didn't have many things.