Since the Middle Ages, the question of the vision of human existence required a rethinking towards simplicity

In every historical period, since we can remember, man has asked himself how to simplify his relationship with life , how to have a more simplistic approach, which does not mean light or superficial, to make existence more natural and less complicated.

In order not to disturb big names like Saint Francis, today we are disturbing another friar, a Franciscan by the name of Guglielmo Occam, who was spokesperson for an idea of life based on "simple" choices and on the simplifications of the difficult ones.

The Franciscan William Occam was born in Ockham, England, in 1288 and immediately distinguished himself for his lively intelligence. At the age of 11 he was sent to a convent to be able to study, thus learning to read and write.

Noted by the prior, he was sent to London to perfect his academic studies, later becoming a teacher both in England, at Oxford, and in France, in Paris.

His intellectual life, as a thinker, was spent on issues of great importance at the time, such as the definition of the absolute power of the Popes, such as Pope John XXII, on topics such as the concept of evangelical poverty and, of a more political nature, whether the emperor could depose the pope.

His revolutionary ideas on the management of existence brought him as a gift, however, also an excommunication and a trial for heresy, from which he managed to save himself by escaping from Ludovico IV il Bavaro in Pisa, to then move on to Rome and subsequently to Monaco, where he died in 1349.

William of Occam became famous for his principle of parsimony and simplicity, later called "Occam's razor" which, concisely affirms the uselessness of doing with more what can be done with less, which said in the Latin language of the time reads “quia frustra fit per plura quod po-test fieri per pauciora”.

Occam's razor indicates the behaviors in various fields:

- Scientific, where it suggests eliminating excessive experiments, useless in the search for truth.

- Environmental, where it suggests aligning with the principles of nature's life that affect the environment, simplifying theories, operations and analyses.

- Personal, where it suggests the need for a more minimalist and thrifty approach to existence.

The tensions that accompany our lives today are largely created by ourselves, not that we enjoy harming ourselves , but it is the result of an approach to problems with complex methodologies, where the mind tries to control what we cannot do in any way.

The high expectations with respect to the standard of life we lead, the sense of frustration about situations that we are unable to reach or manage, the feeling of envy towards others, the rush to achieve goals that we consider indispensable, when many times they are not and the sense of being able to live forever, lead to our creeping suffering.

Occam suggest us how to "razor", cut all these burdens, accepting a simpler and less complicated life.

Machine translation. We apologize for any inaccuracies. Original article in Italian.