Intro to LIFE 101: WHAT THIS IS AND WHAT IT ISN'T

When all the forthcoming pages are collected it may be a book, but if it is a book it's not for some library shelf. It won't be a novel, although there are some stories in it. It won't be a history book or a scientific text book or a compendium of philosophy, although elements of all those will appear. And it certainly won't be a substitute for a college education.

It will be a book about composing your life. The French philosopher Montaigne (you'll hear a lot of names in these pages with which you'll no doubt get better acquainted later on if and when you want to) said, "If you have known how to compose your life, you have accomplished a great deal more than the man who knows how to compose a book. Have you been able to take your stride? You have done more than a man who has taken cities and empires."

These pages are written and sent you in a particular order. They are like building blocks the basic ones planted first to provide a found foundation for the superstructure.

"NightAche", by Tim Holmes

If nothing else can be said about this "book" is that it's characterized by simplicity and brevity. Some educators, philosophers, psychotherapists and others have a tendency to become unnecessarily complicated. and I have become allergic to what I call "The sin of OVERCOMPLIFICATION." One encounters it all the time in academia. How's this for a sample of someone trying to speak of fulfilling one's life?!

"The high actualizers I have known have allowed their body-minds to become fields of space-time from which can be harvested the forming of the Form. Their will and intentionality have become macro-phase and consonant with the primary order........."

Or how about this statement with which I agree, but had to fight to understand: "When promulgating your esoteric cogitations or articulating your super- official sentimentalities and amicable philosophical and psychological observations, beware of platitudinous ponderosity. Let your verbal profundities have lucidity, intelligibility and veracious vivacity without thespian bombast. Sedulously avoid all polysyllabic profundity, pompous propensity and sophomoric vacuity."

Enough already. That's overcomplification in spades if ever I read it. You'll get none of that here.In these pages. I will try to do what it took this fellow over 50 words to say --KISS -Keep It Simple Stupid.

Of course the danger in avoiding overcomplification is the opposite problem of OVERSIMPLIFICATION. I know that we're always looking for shortcuts.We like to summarize truths to fit a bumper sticker. I suspect that the language we use to describe issues or facts that are more complex than it may appear can be expressed in terms that are either accurate or intelligible, but probably not both. But I think nothing is gained in an accurate description of something if it isn't understood. John Ruskin (another of those names) said, "The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something and tell what he saw in a plain way." That shall be my effort in these pages. And my approach is expressed in one of my 'RULES FOR THE ROAD' which I'll throw out from time to time, which is:

'SIMPLIFY NOW, COMPLICATE LATER."

I also said these pages will be brief, little snippets, full enough to make a point and brief enough to give you something to chew on. At the end of some sections I'll include a brief bibliographic suggestion called "Something you might want to read someday." Enjoy!  -Bob Holmes