Essential
“The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.” Henry David Thoreau
(Gyoshū Hayami’s Tea Bowl and Fruits)
I am approaching another year around the sun and find myself asking: What is essential?
Making my morning cup of coffee and get my bowl of fresh fruit ready, I ruminate on this question. Is the essential a paring down? Removing all that does not have meaning. Essential comes from the Latin essentialis, which means “belonging to the essence.” This is derived from the Latin essentia, meaning “being, essence.” Getting to what something truly is, the inner nature or meaning of a thing. The Confucian philosopher Epicurus believed, “Nothing is sufficient for the person who finds sufficiency too little.” Not a sentiment one tends to see in our culture. We have technology and distractions to divert ourselves from asking what is truly important in our lives. We instead accept the answers of consumerism that we can somehow buy our ways to contentment.
Is what is essential an act of simplification over accumulation?
Such an idea is contrary to the culture. We are not taught to be aware of where our need ceases and surplus begins. Instead, we are taught that we can never be enough until we buy enough, which is never, ever enough. Then we look about ourselves and see all that encumbers us and, yet, instead of pausing to ask: Does all of this nourish me? Instead we falsely believe, this does not satisfy me, what else do I need?
At the heart of the question “What is essential?” is the question of “Why?”
Why do I have this? Why do I keep this?
Do I gain a false sense of security from my accumulation? Do I stop to question this? Do I ask myself: Does this nourish me? If not, why do I keep it?
