Simple Minds

A number of intelligent people through history have agreed with da Vinci, regarding simplicity as a sophistication, as only arising from complexity. And yet, at the same time, simple has been used as an insult, as a description for those who don’t – or won’t grasp the complextities of the world. This dichotomy complicates the whole question of simplicity and its desirability.

On the sophisticated side, simplicity is an essence, the distillation of the complex into its pure, concentrated, simple form. Like hieroglyphics or Oriental calligraphy, it’s the expression of a complex idea in a few brush-strokes.

On the other hand, simple is the opposite of complex – it is easy to grasp and understand because if it wasn’t it wouldn’t be simple. Right? Um.

The big questions are deceptively simple: why are we here, what is love, why is the sky blue? They’re simple to ask, but not to answer because they require careful thought to process the question and construct an answer – assuming an answer other than a glib “Because” (however tempting).

Taoists believe there is a natural balance – and to simplify anything beyond its natural state is in fact to complicate it, which makes the issue somewhat recursive, and the relation ship between simple and complex more – well – complicated. Is it possible that both definitions of “simple” are correct?

More to the point, can simple minds grasp the simple – big – questions better than complicated ones? If they can, then surely complicated people like me should strive to sophisticate our minds to a point where we can grapple with the big mysteries?

Simplicity is Complex

According to author Jayce O’Neal, simple –well – isn’t. That’s an interesting thought. Are my efforts to streamline my life ultimately self-defeating? Da Vinci thought simplicity was the ultimate sophistication, which philosophy might be the inspiration for the iLife and Cloud computing, but seems somewhat at odds with what I’m trying to do.

All right, so I came across the term in a martial arts context – used there to illustrate the fact that what a Grandmaster makes look simple the student finds incredibly complex. I think, though, that the idea may have a wider application.

The general process of streamlining reminds me of Langton’s Ant (a computer model that has been used to illustrate the limitations of relying on a Theory of Everything). At first, the simple set rules of the module create a simple pattern, and then the cycle appears to generate chaos before eventually settling into a pattern – is this what da Vinci and O’Neal were on about?

Langton’s Ant and other models like it demonstrate (graphically. Try putting it into YouTube.com) that a simple rule, a simple system can lead to complex, chaotic patterns, and that chaos is the entropic state of the universe, so any order we impose is by definition complex, thus simplicity as we understand it is an illusion because it stands against the tendency of the universe toward disorder, and so the very order we impose in streamlining anything (much less our lives) is only simple in appearance, not in conception or execution.

However mentally M C Escher this may be as a concept, it doesn’t change my desire to simplify – ok, streamline – my life. 

What are you? A centipede?

I have too many clothes. In particular, I have too many shoes. And I can jsutify every last pair, which is a problem. The bottom of my wardrobe is a tangle of stilettos, wedges, courts, boots, riding boots, sandals, flat shoes and trainers, all tumbling over each other in a fruitless search for space. And I only have, including slippers, 20 pairs. This is not a lot for a woman. My male friends raise their eyebrows and disbelieve that last comment, until forced to consider their girlfriends/mothers/sisters’ collections.

Why is it that men can get away with two or three pairs of shoes, and yet women like me feel the need to own many? As much as we shake our heads at her excess, most women understand where Imelda Marcos was coming from with her collection. I don’t know why it is, but I genuinely like 5-inch stilettos. I can walk in them, dance all night in them, and I love how tall they make me. I own 3 pairs and seldom go anywhere that jsutifies wearing them. And yet I cannot bring myself to throw them out.

Really, I shouldn’t need more shoes than a man; I should be able to survive on 5 pairs – two smart, two casual, and in my case, riding boots. Even allowing for seasonal changes, that’s only 10 pairs. So why the hell do I feel I need double that?

Is it what I spent on them? Well, I don’t spend that much (ie, don’t have that much to spend) and I have fussy feet to boot. Is it that, as seldom as I wear some pairs, there are outfits that don’t work without them? (And what does that say about the relative value of female appearance to male?) Is it a deep-seated desire to have options, in case, as some subverted remnant of our survival instincts? Or are we just magpies when it comes to shiny and new?

Whichever it is, I must surely be able to survive on 15 pairs, getting rid of 5. So begins the painful process of deciding which ones.

Simple Minds

It hasn't been a good week. Come to that, today isn't being a good day either. Mostly because my mind has never been great at multitasking and currently feels it's drowning, flailing in a sea of thoughts.
Wouldn't it be useful if pensieves really existed? If we could siphon off the excess clutter and simply our thoughts?
Meditation is a way to do that, but it takes time and practice to get to the point of stillness, of immersion in the now.
Riding is a way to do that - everything peripheral is subsumed in the joy of the moment, in concentration on the road now and the road ahead.
And theoretically, if space-time is a continuum, then simplifying space should help. Sigh. Back to clearing out the closet i suppose.
Was my old school principal right in telling us every term that tidy cupboards meant tidy minds? As a thought, that's almost worrying.