On Simplicity
So, I have a problem.
I don't know that it's a problem problem. It's a problem for me. I love stuff. In my shriveled little heart, I'm a magpie, grabbing any shiny thing I can. Consumer electronics in particular.
I've never made enough money to really indulge this part of me, which is probably a blessing from the Lord. What I've made, I've tried to be strategic with, with some success., but we're entering a season of negative income. I'm going back to school, and I'll be making half of what I used to. We weren't living that large to begin with.
The program I'm enrolled in, the Christian Spiritual Formation program at Friends University, is highly influenced by a couple past faculty, who have since passed to be with the Lord. Dallas Willard, who wrote Renovation of the Heart (and many others) and Richard Foster, who wrote Celebration of Discipline (and many others). Richard Foster in particular has been one of my favorite authors to read, long before I thought about going back to school. Being able to dig in at this program in my own town is a big treat.
Foster and Willard were big in to emphasizing the point that the human spiritual experience requires a congruity or cooperation between the body, mind and spirit. A Human is a whole person, and the Greek move of breaking these parts of the person apart to understand them better separately misses the necessary context. You can't feed the mind effectively by ignoring the body, you can't serve the body while ignoring the spirit. Even if the only thing you care about is the Spiritual development of your self or your charges (which, to be clear, is still misguided), you will be required to develop the mind and the body to continue to develop the spirit, lest it be weighed down by it's atrophied partners in this life. They loved to develop the spirit, but they spent a lot of time emphasizing the spiritual disciplines to an American Christianity that was/is deficient in it's respect for these things. We don't do a good job teaching our new people (brand new people or new-to-us people) the light and life of the disciplines.
One can and indeed should make a lifelong study of the disciplines, and my treatment here cannot be exhaustive. This is a blog post, not a term paper, and I have other things I want to do with my day. I did want to reflect, though, on one discipline in particular, the discipline of Simplicity.
“Simplicity is an inward reality that results in an outward lifestyle. Both are necessary.” Simplicity is another way to talk about singleness of focus and purpose, directing the mind and heart to the with-God-life. We fight against distractions and competing lords of our life. We say with our actions and our hearts that conformity to Christ is the thing we want to do, and this has meaningful social and economic consequences!
For me, a season of focusing on simplicity most often confronts and conflicts with the magpie living in my heart. It's reflected in my actions as a season of Frugality or Thrift. This is different than a lot of the ways the Western Protestant tradition has taught Thrift, focusing on gluttony or greed as moral defects and Thrift as an ascetic balm against such profligacy. The disciplines are also grace, and the point isn't to deprive and lead a less-life. The point is to follow the path of life, away from death, and for me Simplicity, Frugality, Thrift is the way I say with my body and my mind what my spirit agrees with Christ in: “The Lord is Generous, and I have more than enough.”
Thrift says “The Lord has been generous with my furniture, I have more than enough.” “I have more than enough video games.” “I have more than enough books.” When you're a kid and your parents are trying to teach you contentedment, it feels like a deprivation, a “no”, a clever and roundabout way of keeping you from having the things you want. Such is the nature of children! I think having hobbies is a great thing, and a gift of God. Some people might balk at the idea that a video game involving violence or a book that has real life wizards in it could be called a gift of God, but I have no qualms. I give thanks to God for these things, and recognize their importance in keeping me sane in this world. Having hobbies is good, but hobbies are often a way for me to neglect simplicity, to acquire and gather and keep in the hope of filling the gap in my life. Simplicity is supposed to be the grace from God that frees us from this striving in impossibility.
So, I made a goal. I'm not buying any more games until I finish all the ones I have, and I'm not buying any more narrative books until I read all the ones I have. In pursuit of this goal, I have made a list. I don't know how write.as will render the obsidian markdown for a checklist but I'll just copy/paste the whole thing here:
Gameboy Advance
– [ ] Pokémon Emerald
– [ ] Pokémon FireRed
– [ ] Golden Sun
– [ ] Golden Sun, The Lost Age
– [ ] Super Mario World: Super Mario Advance 2
– [ ] Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga
– [ ] Sonic Advance 2
– [ ] ChuChu Rocket
– [ ] Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town
Gameboy Color
– [ ] Wario Land 3
– [ ] Pokémon Puzzle Challenge
– [ ] The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages
– [ ] The Legend of Zelda: Links Awakening DX
Gameboy
– [ ] Super Mario Land
– [ ] Pokémon Blue
– [ ] Pokémon Pinball
Playstation
– [ ] Final Fantasy VIII
– [ ] Final Fantasy IX
PlayStation 2
– [ ] Kingdom Hearts
– [ ] Kingdom Hearts II
– [ ] Jak and Daxter
– [ ] Jak II
– [ ] Jak 3
– [ ] Jak X Combat Racing
– [ ] Psychonauts
– [ ] Ico
– [ ] Star Wars Battlefront
– [ ] Dark Cloud 2
PlayStation 4
– [ ] Uncharted 4
– [ ] Battlefield 4
– [ ] Battlefield 1
– [ ] Monster Hunter World
– [ ] Bloodborne
– [ ] Dark Souls III
PC
– [ ] Apico
– [ ] Armored Core VI
– [ ] Baldurs Gate 3
– [ ] The Banner Saga
– [ ] Cassette Beasts
– [ ] Garden Story
– [ ] One Step from Eden
– [ ] Return of the Obra Dinn
– [ ] Cyberpunk 2077 (Hard)
– [ ] 9 Years of Shadows
– [ ] Alba: A Wildlife Adventure
– [ ] Assemble with Care
– [ ] Axiom Verge
– [ ] Axiom Verge 2
– [ ] Caves of Qud
– [ ] Death’s Gambit: Afterlife
– [ ] Dust: An Elysian Tale
– [ ] Ghost Song
– [ ] Half Life 2
– [ ] A Hat in Time
– [ ] Jet Set Radio
– [ ] Jotun
– [ ] Just Cause 2
– [ ] Kao the Kangaroo
– [ ] The Knight Witch
– [ ] Quake II
– [ ] Saints Row: The Third
– [ ] Saints Row IV
– [ ] Slime Rancher
– [ ] The Spirit and the Mouse
– [ ] Sundered
– [ ] Super Lucky’s Tale
– [ ] New Super Lucky’s Tale
– [ ] Super Meat Boy
– [ ] Torchlight 2
– [ ] Trine 2
– [ ] Tropico 4
– [ ] Void Bastards
– [ ] VVVVVV
– [ ] Witchy Life Story
TRULY THE LORD HAS BEEN GENEROUS! That's way more than I thought I had at the beginning of the list.
For those of you interested in the rules I've set for myself, the big one is that when I mean I need to finish all these games, I mean I need to play them until I'm finished with them, i.e. I've decided I've extracted all the fun I can with them. I don't force myself to finish books, and I think there's a got to be a least a couple games in there that are duds or dodos and that's why I haven't finished them. I'm also reasonably sure, however, that I got distracted by the abundance of games I have before finishing a lot of these. So we're going to take another stab.
The other rule I have is that this is not a race. If I was a streamer or making youtube content, this would very much lend itself to “HOW QUICKLY CAN I FINISH ALL MY GAMES” type video. I have a small break from school but not a big one, and I'll eventually have to go back to using games to relax for a little bit at the end of the night.
I might just find that I already have all the games I'll ever need. Who knows?
Follow me on Polymaths Social for up to date announcements on when I finish each game.