"Give me the simple life." Ahh, yes. Many of us talk the talk even as we compound the complexity in our own day-to-day living with devices and activities. I have recently purchased my first CD burner and my first digital camera. Yet, the call to simplicity beckons. It probably oozes from between the layers of incessant, external pressure on one's consciousness; it also echoes from the past, our heritage. Who among us doesn't know of the "different drummer" from Thoreau, or "self reliance" from Emerson, words that subtly incite yearnings for a simpler existence even as we participate in the whirl of today.

Is there really a problem? Maybe yes, maybe no. It's a personal matter. We each acclimatize differently to these times. "We boil at different degrees." (Emerson). You've come this far. Should you inquire further about simplifying? Take a self-exam and decide.

Once in a while do you...
1. Wish you had more time for things that you sense really interest you?
2. Feel you are inundated with too many choices to be made, many of them on trivial matters?
3. Pine for less synthetic stimulation in your life?
4. Tire of the parade of experts raining advice on you about who you should be and what you should do?

Simplifying is a positive response to one or more yeses above. This section contains thoughts on the subject, material I hope tickles your fancy.

SCB