Enough

Here is the epigraph at the beginning of Nothing Left Over:

“Experience is the fuel: I would live my life burning it up as I go along, so that at the end nothing is left unused, so that every piece of it has been consumed in the work.”

May Sarton wrote this in her book  Plant Dreaming Deep, and it has been a constant thread in my life ever since I came across it.

It was my friend and original publisher, Joel Fotinos, who dreamed up the idea for the book in 2000. The thought would never have occurred to me on my own. We were having dinner one night and I was telling him of my plans to leave full-time employment and he instantly suggested that I write a book for him with this title. Once I had got over the shock, the notion seemed irresistible. When I stopped to consider it, I realized that everything I do is governed by the principle of not having anything left over. Still, I’m baffled that he was able to size me up so accurately.

I realized that living economically and wanting to be of service to other people and share with them whatever has come my way has always been a theme for me. When I arrived in the United States, I met with the head of the fledgling New York philosophy school, and she asked me, “What do you want from us?” I was taken aback by this question because both at home and in the school’s parent organization in London, I could not recall anyone ever asking me what I wanted. As far back as I remembered, I was simply told what to do and usually I did it. I don’t wish to imply that I was a yes-person. I certainly challenged authority a great deal but this took a certain amount of courage because challenge was not considered an option by Those-in-Charge. (This was England fifty years ago. In the United States there are always so many options…)

For a moment there was silence as I tried to collect my thoughts, and then I said, “I just want to be useful.” I understand now that this desire has characterized my whole life. I like things to be put to good use. For me, economy is all. I never buy or cook any more than is necessary. I am always going through my closets to see what I can pass on to someone else. I feel guilty if I am not using whatever I own—books, sweaters, shoes, you name it. And when I went through my files to see if I had ever written anything on the subject of economy, I found that quote by May Sarton, which I had squirreled away five years before. Come to think of it, none of this should have surprised me, since I began my training at a place called the School of Economic Science! (The school had begun by teaching the economics of the American Henry George, author of Progress and Poverty, and had gone on to add philosophy to its curriculum. I never found the economic aspect of what was taught there very appealing. Or so I thought until Joel asked me to write a book. I’d always been under the impression that I had gone there for the philosophy.)

As I thought about it, I realized that the result of gathering about you only what you need and relinquishing everything else is self-sufficiency—a lack of emotional neediness. This is another way of saying that it is wise to be satisfied with what you have. Lately, I have been mulling over the word “content.” I find it wonderful that it means both “that which is contained” and also “being satisfied.” Both meanings come from the past participle of the Latin verb continere. Contentment is a peaceful and unruffled state but nowadays it is all too rare.

So everything you read in the pages of Nothing Left Over is an exploration of how to live so that supply does not exceed demand or consumption; how to share whatever you may have with everyone else, not holding anything back in a miserly way; and how to trust that the universe will respond to you in the same way that you respond to it.