Introduction

The opposite of simplicity isn't complexity. Its superficiality. It's a life that is trivial, vain, ephemeral. The choice is not between a simple life and a complex one, but between a deep life and a shallow one. And few people, if we are honest, ever achieve a simple life. One of the precious few was the twentieth century quaker intellectual thomas cully. He does a great job of capturing that nagging fear that so many of us live with in the western, modern world. We have hints that there is a way of life vastly richer and deeper than all this hurried existence. If only we could slip over into that centre.