When the Illusion Breaks: Discovering the Strength of Simplicity

Have you ever thought about how the great psychologists and philosophers throughout history built their theories on simple human experiences, on ordinary people, and often on those who are suffering or vulnerable?

How many psychology books and hours of analysis are devoted to understanding the behavior of a simple person who cannot read or write?

This may sound like a topic for a lesson in faith, but I want to take it somewhere simpler. And believe me, it is not easy to be simple.

The Collapse of Expectations

At the beginning of married life, we carry many expectations.

Like a newborn child who looks around and sees only big, smart, successful people and begins to dream and aspire. Slowly, as the child grows, they realize that all those big people are actually children themselves, people who also need support. In the same way, our inner child within the relationship matures, and we begin to understand that reality is not as elevated as our early dreams. Daily life finds us somewhat broken, somewhat angry, and unsure how to fulfill the enormous visions we once held.

We look around more soberly and discover that even the models we admired are not as strong and steady as we believed. They, too, are lacking, like every human being.

This perspective is called maturity. The ability to look reality in the eye comes from the accumulated miles we have walked along the road of life.

Then disappointment arrives. The dream dissolves. We are forced to confront the fractures, the lack, the deficiency, and begin dealing with them.

And who actually wants to be mature and understanding?

With greater knowledge comes greater pain.

We prefer to remain like happy children watching a world of powerful adults, convinced that perfection is just around the corner, that someone wiser will appear and solve everything for us.

But adulthood brings responsibility. A person must carry their life, sustain it, support others, and stop waiting for miracles or relying excessively on someone else. They must be more attentive, more thoughtful, and often more sorrowful.

The Illusion of Wholeness

And then, perhaps out of innocence, or perhaps from the cleverness of purity, a new phase of late childhood arrives. We look at life again with renewed hope. Strengthened by maturity and by encouragement from within and from without, we tell ourselves that now we can soar. Now we can create, initiate, build, and succeed. Now we will be the happy couple. We understand. We have learned. We have tools. We will avoid the old pitfalls. We will give, contribute, and create completeness.

That completeness.

It shatters with the first argument.

One Shabbat when someone does not feel well, a misplaced word, something her mother said, a reaction that stung, and the sense of wholeness collapses.

We look again at the fragments of the burst balloon and are stunned by the intensity of disappointment, deeper than anything we had known before.

And if we are not yet exhausted, we rise again. Over and over.

The Spiral of Relationship

Relationships move in a spiral.

We begin at a starting point and return to it repeatedly throughout life.

Over the years together, the same themes return to challenge and delight us. The phrase “I’ve already told you a thousand times” is not exaggeration. It is real.

The spiral returns us to familiar places, but each time at a higher level. With every cycle, we ascend.

If someone had asked you twenty years ago to describe your pain over something she did, and asked you again today, the two descriptions would not be the same. Each time, the language changes. Each time, we grow. We are always in motion.

And if you ask, progress toward what?

Toward simplicity.

Returning to the Soul

After all the hopes and disappointments, after the fireworks and the despair, what remains is raw and simple material: the soul.

When a small understanding appears, when there is a quiet moment of grace and a gentle smile, we no longer need decoration. We simply feel.

Simplicity with depth.
Simplicity with love.
Simplicity of a soul that longs, soars, breaks, and reconnects.

We come to understand that the spiral and the emotional roller coaster were never meant to launch us into increasingly complex places.

They were meant to bring us home to simplicity.

A simplicity so piercing that nothing else is required.

Man. Woman. Smile. The Divine Presence.

Perhaps we can gather a piece of this simplicity and place it gently into our small backpack as we continue our journey along the spiral of life.

As we bloom, deepen, soar, and fall, we will do so with more simplicity. With more heart.

And we will know.
And we will understand.
And we will no longer be afraid.