I am strongly attracted to “the simple life.”
That has been true since I was in high school and read an author who praised the simple life in his book “Walden.”
The author, Henry David Thoreau, wrote in that book, “Our life is frittered away with details. Simplify, simplify, simplify.”
The older I get, however, the harder it is to simplify. With each succeeding year, it seems, I’m bombarded with more details.
This has been especially true after the introduction into my life over the years of the personal computer, the internet and the cell phone. The cell phone is the worst.
The invention of the emoji is a good example. I was perfectly content expressing my emotions in an email or text with the ingenious use of punctuation marks. When I was happy, I could use :<). When I was frustrated I could type :<0.
But now my cell phone keeps telling me to use little cartoons. I would prefer not to.
Lately the grocery store I patronize tells me I can get good deals if I use a digital coupon. But to do so, I need to add another app to my phone. I would prefer not to.
Even my car tells me I need to add an app on my cell phone in order to use its navigation system. I would prefer not to.
Apps are the ultimate in details which clutter up one’s life. The more apps people have, the more their lives are frittered away with details. Besides, my relatively simple cell phone keeps telling me I don’t have enough space to add apps.
My daughter Ginny regularly tells me I need to upgrade my cell phone, but not because of apps. She tells me the photos I send to her via my cell phone stink. When she asks me if I plan to get a new cell phone, I say, “I would prefer not to.”
Other family members tell me I need to use Twitter (now called by the awful name “X”), Instagram and TikTok. More details, more clutter. I tell them, “I would prefer not to.”
As it turns out, I find myself often using the phrase frequently spoken by Bartleby, a character in Herman Melville’s short story, “Bartleby, the Scrivener.”
Melville published that story in a magazine in 1853, just one year before “Walden” was published, although there’s no connection between the two, other than in my mind.
It turns out Thoreau’s and Melville’s thoughts are still applicable today, perhaps more applicable than ever.
Before I go any further I need to say, especially to those familiar with Melville’s short stories, that I don’t consider myself exactly in the mold of Bartleby.
In Melville’s story, Bartleby works in a law office, paid to do very tedious legal tasks that attorneys need to do but pass off to clerks in their offices.
This is still true today, when we have a whole profession of paralegals who do just that, although they do much more complicated tasks than Bartleby. His job was simply to copy by hand, in pen and ink, legal documents and proofread them. (Clearly the time long before the Xerox machine.)
One day, when his boss asks him to do a task, Bartleby decides to say, “I would prefer not to.” Each time his boss asks him again to do another task he says, “I would prefer not to.”
To know why his boss doesn’t immediately fire him, you’ll need to read the story for yourself. Even when his boss asks him to leave the office for good, Bartleby says, “I would prefer not to.” As it turns out, Bartleby ends up in prison where he dies after telling the prison guards, “I would prefer not to,” including preferring not to eat prison food.
So, no, I’m not Bartleby. I won’t say, as he did, “I would prefer not to” to every request made of me every day, but I will continue to say this phrase to those (including family members I dearly love) who ask me to add more clutter, more details to my life.
I will also confess that my life is not as simple as I’d like it to be, far from it. I have too much clutter I’ve accumulated around my house that I don’t have the initiative to get rid of.
However, I am determined not to add technical clutter to my life, a task I believe is equal to that of a character from Greek mythology written about more than 2,500 years ago named Sisyphus, who spent his entire life rolling a big boulder up a hill, only to have to come rolling down on top of him just before he reached the top.
I will close by telling my readers there is much to be gained by reading the literature of the past, whether fiction, nonfiction, poetry or drama. Knowledge and wisdom are not limited to those who’ve lived during our lifetime. Authors like Thoreau and Melville, as well as Greek authors writing centuries before Christ, still speak to us today.
Human beings at the core haven’t really changed that much. We still have the same concerns and desires as people did centuries ago. As Melville wrote at the conclusion of his short story, “Ah, Bartleby! Ah, humanity!”
John Spevak’s email is john.spevak@gmail.com.
