Have you noticed how easy it is to take for granted the profound impact of the simplest things in our lives that someone, somewhere invented?  

The umbrella that keeps us dry in a downpour.  The chair we sit on while eating our meals.  The steps we climb to enter out homes.  Such simplicity often has a marvelous elegance about it that’s so easy to overlook.  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote, “In character, in manner, in style, in all things, the supreme excellence is simplicity.” Mike Fink provides us with a healthy reminder.   
 

Mike Fink is an English professor at the Rhode Island School of Design. He has produced columns in a wide range of local and national magazines and earned the Providence Journal’s Metcalf Award and the National Conference for Community Justice Award, as well as the Never Again Award for journalism