bare essentials

Senator John McCain from the floor of the Senate, October 1, 2008:

Last week I suspended my campaign and both my opponent and I raced back to Washington to craft a bill to solve a very real crisis.  Again today we find ourselves back here in the Senate confronting the same crisis . . . but with a much worse bill.

Whether or not we label them as such, most of us have heroes. I do, at any rate, and so do most of the folks I run with, online and off. There are people whose commitment, character and contribution are so influential to my own commitment, character and contribution that I listen to them, study them and try to emulate them. Heroes need not be currently living.

Simplicity has turned out to be one of the most complex subjects I’ve ever studied.  On the long drive back from Texas this past weekend, Becky and I talked more simply about what exactly we mean by “simplicity” than we ever have before.  Here are two questions we asked ourselves and the whittled-down answers we came up with:

Why live simply?

In the future newspapers might actually be able to pay readers for subscribing. Maybe filling out the bare essentials of a survey would garner someone a free print and Web subscription, but filling out extra questions, or visiting a certain number of advertisers’ Web sites would give them a cash rebate? People are willing to [...]