Simple

Squibs & Blurbs

by Jerry Zimmerman

TEANECK, NJ—(Weekly Hubris)—10/11/10—“That looks so simple!”

Famous last words, if I’ve ever heard them.

I have become increasingly attracted to the more pared down, the cleaner, the more direct, the simpler things in life. More attracted, not because these things seem easier but, quite the opposite; the more spare and elegantly sparse things, events, thoughts, training, goals—almost anything—appear to be, under the surface they are almost always richer, deeper, more complex and more difficult than one could imagine.

Many of my experiences lately have reinforced this desire for the clear and simple or, at least, my appreciation of the amazing power inherent in just that one right word or movement or thought.

A clean house.

Most people, as they move toward the later part of their lives, seem almost always to feel a pressure to discard the unnecessary, get rid of the useless and clean up the mess around them. My father, as he became older and was living alone, suddenly started to bug me to come and get all my junk still stored in the crawl space at his house. OK, maybe there was no reason for me to keep my old useless things there any more, like my never-to-be-used-again drum set, but why the sudden insistence on getting everything out right then?

Living alone in my own house, I am surprised to feel the same urgent pull to start getting rid of whatever I really don’t need, particularly in my jammed-up attic. I’m beginning to understand my father’s sudden impulse for clarity, even though he was at a loss to explain its driving urgency; these items have a weight, a psychic tonnage, that makes the spirit heavy; we need to jettison them from our attics and basements to simplify the physical and mental space around our lives, so we can move more freely and breathe more easily.

Haiku.

Although I don’t particularly search out poetry, whenever I stumble onto a beautiful haiku, it always jolts me. How can the poet create such a journey and such a shock of the truth, with the same surprising power as being whacked in the head with a baseball bat, with a couple of exquisitely chosen words? Inexplicably, the minute thrust of the haiku strikes so much deeper into the soul than a lengthy exposition. It is acupuncture of the word, hitting the precise pinpoint of your soul, lasering your understanding in a flash.

Tony Smith’s sculpture. Isamu Noguchi’s sculpture.

Is there an object more complex and fraught with the wholeness of life than one of the strong, clear sculptures of either of these two men?  Each works with a breathtaking simplicity, a paring down of form to its essence, capturing a complexity of idea, place, scale, material, and humanity in his core object that speaks worlds to each viewer, whether a casual observer or an ardent fan.

I recently saw a picture (a picture!) of a large black shape rendered by Tony Smith, alone in stand a of trees in autumn. Yes, the whole scene was beautiful, postcard beautiful, but the sculpture jarred my entire sense of being a human being living on such a gorgeous planet; engendered in me a new and complex notion of myself in relationship to nature that I understood as a whole, instantly. When an object becomes true art, the simplicity of its existence encompasses the rich complexity of the life surrounding it.

The art of Aikido.

My understanding of Aikido, the martial art I practice and teach, becomes more and more distilled and simplified the longer I train. After 25 years, I’m beginning to tap into the essence of the art rather than just the form. In an art of beautiful flowing movement, sweeping turns, explosive throws, and soaring falls, I return again and again to that one small moment of mind and body uniting, a moment that creates a whirlpool of energy I never knew existed and that is more powerful than the flexing of any number of muscles.

I find such great joy and magic in that small clear movement that creates the biggest effect, and I see, too, how much more difficult the simple is than the complex. In my training, the unadorned movement, the correct movement at the correct moment, contains the whole relationship of attacker and attacked, illuminates the energy between us, and delineates our place in the rich and infinite world that we all inhabit together.

Cleanliness. Poetry. Sculpture. Movement.

It seems the path to understanding, to knowledge, to breathing, to seeing, to being, is a journey through long and twisting paths, often difficult and tortuously complex. Perhaps our long trek will bring us to a clear way, a direct and easy direction in which to travel.

If we are lucky, we might finally find ourselves on that path, and it will be an invigorating and peaceful walk.

It will look so simple.