true simplicity; creating a whole

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/1b87a53e-9ef7-11e1-a767-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1vgspQ2rd

..... One problem is that there is an ambiguity in the very notion of a simple life. There is the zealous desire for a life reduced to the bare minimum that leads to an austere minimalism. But there is also the more modest ideal of a life stripped of excess, which only requires avoiding the superfluous.

The medieval scholastic friar William of Ockham provides another way of becoming clearer about simplicity with the help of his metaphysical razor. Often glossed as the principle that simpler explanations are preferable to more complicated ones, it is more accurately described as the injunction not to multiply entities beyond necessity – an apt message for a consumerist society if ever I’ve heard one.

.... true simplicity in life is not necessarily a matter of having or doing less, but creating a whole in which the different elements do not jar and scrape against each other.

- Antonia Macaro and Julian Baggini, 'Is a simpler life a better life?'