A MINIMALIST WE CAN ALL LIVE WITH

Father William of Okham, "OCCAM," is the famous author of the "lex parsimoniae" [the law of parsimony, 13th century, AD] or, as my younger son likes to say, "Pa, remember, less is more." [21st century AD]  Now, you're not going to believe this, but I thought of this in the morning while sitting in church where I was supposed to be praying.  Of course, I was accompanied by the Voice from the Kitchen, who very often doubles as "Conscience."  I do confess, I enjoy the 8:00 AM daily Mass.  It gives me a reason to see if I can stand and walk after I have been kicked out of my horizontal comfort by Mother Nature Herself.  Sometimes she gets the nasties and makes me exercise two or three times in the course of my intimate embraces with my dear Morpheus.  There was none of that on this occasion.  So there I was sitting there in church and thinking about a famous Franciscan Friar Minor by name of Father William of Okham.  He is the person who inspired Bertrand Russell to label Father William's philosophy, "Occam's Razor."  After Russell, a well known Italian author, Umberto Eco wrote about this philosophy extensively in his dark humor novel, "The Pendulum of Foucault."  Why am I bringing all this up?  No, not because it is important, but just because it is a "thought."  It is a very interesting thought, as a matter of fact.  Have you ever asked yourself why it is that reality seems so complicated to you?  I'll bet you have.  You never gave a thought to see if someone had existed at some point on the history line who had thought differently.  Imagine telling a politician Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate. [Plurality must never be posited without necessity]  Most of us have been told more than once along the road of life, "KISS it, Baby." [Keep It Simple Stupid]  Now with all of that, so many of us get lost in the morass of unnecessary complication.  Maybe we should all go out and be Franciscan Friars Minor!  Nooooo, not us.  We find it more fun to live a

Rube Goldberg life, like this automatic chin wiper invention.  Cool, don'tcha think?  We need more of these, especially in Maxims on the Champs Elysees of gay Paree.  I'm sitting here and I'm remembering the piece I sent you a couple months ago, picture and all, about the little green Ford Falcon and the tiny motor that it had under the hood, the manual transmission box tucked gently behind the block and the cute little distributor sitting atop the overhead valve boxes underneath the red-capped air filter.  Remember that? [I found it for you, click here.]  Now, that was simple.  The joy of gazing upon such simplicity has disappeared from our lives.  Detroit, among others, should discover Occam's Razor.  So, the thought for the day is, "Less is more."  Or, "The simplest explanation always stands a 60-40 chance of being the best one."  If you can't be a Franciscan, for whatever reason, keep one handy in your cell phone.  It could come in handy.