Sometimes (when I slow down), I notice how much of what is in my closet I haven’t really worn in a while. Or, I’ll notice how much stuff is accumulating in my basement (most of which is there because I don’t use it regularly). And, then, I look around my house and my garage and my yard…’stuff’ everywhere. I don’t need much more of anything (where would I put it anyway?).
This recognition happens, in part, when you can’t really do very much more by having much more. In our American context, that recognition seems more rare (and counter-intuitive) than not. Pretty obviously, this is a function of the consumer orientation we’ve developed about our existence as a culture. Our economic engine actively promotes making more stuff so that we buy it (whether we need it or not). We actually get bored with our lives if we can’t spend our money on more things.
Accordingly, we don’t really like the notion of enough. Because enough is, actually, not very much. The problem is, though, that the appetite we create for more, more, more only becomes more ravenous…it even feeds on itself (often without us even realizing it). But, there is a point at which you can’t do anything, at least substantively, by simply getting more.
More actually takes us in the opposite direction, primarily because it takes us away from our need (both our sense of it and what that actually is). Perhaps this is, essentially, what is behind the trope 'less is more'. Because more buries us. It hides us from ourselves. It fills, what needs to be filled, with things that make us less of what we are.
We don't need more because more keeps us from knowing what we really need.
And, how we discover what we need is also rather conspicuous, isn’t it? We should take note of that and let it lead us in a deeper recognition of, and to the better questions about, what is truly enough.
Ultimately, this happens to us anyway as we are naturally reduced over time by our capacity to handle more (or, even the same amount).
…unless we simply choose to ignore it.