Complexity or Simplicity. You Decide.

• Do you think most people make life too difficult?
• Do you think most people tend to oversimplify complex issues?
• Would you rather work in a complex or a simple environment?
• How does YOUR world function?

Here is a paradox I’ve lived with for a long time: 

• Too much complexity, of thought or technology or procedure, is a problem.  Simplicity is much preferable.
• Overly simplistic attitudes and systems are the problem.  Complexity is unavoidable and embracing it is necessary.

Depending on the situation - and perhaps my disposition - I can find fault with overly-complex or overly-simplistic elements within our society, or on display in the persons around me. 

Recently it has occurred to me that this might not be a real paradox at all, but two complementary statements, both true, which arise from the same underlying principle.  If so, I might be able to get at the truth behind the words, and express the reality in a single statement.

Of course, maybe it really is a paradox.  No less valid, just more difficult to grasp and communicate.

Let’s think about it.  I’ll go first.

Point of View #1:  Complexity is the Problem.  Live Simply.

Life is simple, really.  Making situations too complicated gets in the way of living.  Making machines too complex makes them more prone to malfunction.  Making processes complex results in drudgery, wastes time and effort, and prevents desired results from being accomplished. 

Complexity ties us up with procedural requirements, details which must be acknowledged or ignored at our own peril.  Complexity uses up mental and emotional resources which could be put to good use.  Complexity steals our spontaneity and our freedom. 

Complexity reduces efficiency.  Complexity exists in part to feed the self-importance of individuals by distinguishing the “expert” from the neophyte who hasn’t mastered complex concepts, processes, or terminology yet. 

Complexity robs persons of the freedom just to be.  Complexity diminishes intuitive understanding, inhibits spontaneous happiness, and disregards the simplicity of love.  Complexity kills people by taking their time and poisoning their mental and emotional processes, deadening them to the joys of life.

Point of View #2:  Simplicity is the Problem.  Embrace the Intricate Beauty of Life.

The world is big and expansive and full of wonders.  People are capable of anything, given time, commitment, and reasonable resources.  Creativity is boundless.  People who try to keep limit everything to the most basic level will miss the point of it all. 

Many who oversimplify claim to know everything worth knowing - but life is about learning and exploring.  The one who stresses simplicity is usually focused on results, an end product, a destination, but life is all about discovery, the process, the journey. 

A simple world in which every question has a right answer, every choice can be assessed as right or wrong, is a world in which every situation has a predetermined outcome, a world in which there is no real freedom to choose.  The world of black-and-white, of all-right or all-wrong, might be easier to understand than the “real” world, but it is a not world fit for free and creative people. 

Simplicity overdone takes away choice, reduces life to a set of rules or expectations, stifles creativity and happiness and love in favor of “correct” principles and behaviors.  It is a world for robots, without true thought, meant to exist only in a simple world of zeros and ones. 

The Conclusion

So which is it?  Do you believe our thoughts and constructs and procedures are too complex, or too simple?  Is one or the other of these comments right, and the other, wrong?  Could both be true?  Which do you believe… too simple or too complex? 

I know what I think.

Gryphem