SSF: “Twenty Eight Feet”

My life’s complicated. And I love it.

Sure, there are times when it threatens to overwhelm. Every day — sometimes, it feels like “every second of every day” — I find myself surrounded by a sea of dependent little humans. A sea that occasionally feels just as likely to wash me away as it is to sustain me. A sea that prevents me from doing as I please, and keeps me from drifting aimlessly and without attachment. A sea of little personalities that renders both my life’s complexity and my affection for it true in ways that I couldn’t even imagine when we first began.

But I love a life of simplicity, as well. I don’t want it instead of what I’ve got, because I wouldn’t trade this for anything. But I love the reminders a simple(r) life can bring; reminders of how close we can (and should) be to our Creator; reminders of the directness and simplicity we must fight to maintain underneath all the layers of modern “living;” reminders of the necessity of real, human connections that can get so easily lost as we go about our complicated daily lives.

A life captures by films like this.

A short documentary about David Welsford, who has given up the luxuries of land in search for happiness and adventure on a 50 year old wooden boat he restored from a scrap heap.

There’s a lyric towards the end of the film — a line from Ben Howard’s “Old Pine” — that really struck me as I was watching (and listening). A line that David himself is struggling to understand himself as he acknowledges that he’s mostly unattached, and that he’s not entirely sure if that’s a good thing. One that helps me realize that all the complexifications and the dependency — the overwhelming times and their feisty, hilarious little causes — are things I’ll look back on with fondness and gratitude.

The simplicity in the midst of the complexity.