Simplify

My aim is to put down on paper
what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way.
—Ernest Hemingway

Reason prevails. I am in a subtracting mood. Less is better. Less is lighter. Less encumbers less. Simplify.

Suppose I looked around and began to really ask, " What is necessary, what is comfortable, what is beyond the pale? What is too much?”

Doesn't that last question depend upon who is answering? Some folks think that a house for two with less than four bathrooms is impossible. I grew up in an apartment where four people shared one bathroom and I don't recall any problems--save when someone took a book into the bathroom.

Simplify. People we know decided that they will no longer buy anything new.They either barter goods and clothes or buy items at yard sales or at thrift stores. Since they can afford to buy many items new are they competing with people who have far less money?

Simplify. I look around me and realize that my penchant for notebooks with good paper kills trees. Suppose I refuse to purchase any notebooks until every last page is used in my stash of books.

And suppose I restricted myself to the use of one and two syllable words—would that release a torrent of succinct and evocative prose?