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.

Rocket Science

Einstein said that “Everything should be made as simple as possible. But not simpler.”

I love this quote, if only because it makes me feel a bit better about my indifferent success at simplifying my life. Einstein was far brainier than me, after all. Okay, so he wasn’t talking about life as much as science, and simplifying has to be simpler than rocket science. But still. It’s nice to think that certified genii have thought along the same lines, and hit upoon a level beyond which simplifying is dangerous because overdone.

I was having a look at the 4 Hour Work Week as well, and one of the things that struck me was that it’s really not that simple. Or necessarily that effective. Just efficient.

Efficiency = work done/ time.

Effective = impact of the work done, regardless of time taken.

Efficient gets things done. Effective gets the right things done. Yes, to outsource the nitty gritty of your life to a subcontinental call centre or agent gets things done, leaving you free to get more of the right things done. But if the minutiae is so voluminous as to warrant outsourcing, I have to wonder if it’s all necessary.

I admit, I am far too much of a control freak about my life and my affairs to wantonly hand over control to a stranger in a another country. Even when I had holdings in two countires, my agent where I didn’t live was a relative. I am far to technocynical to trust the Cloud and the internet as a safe place for all my personal details. It’s far too easy to hack, and identity theft is on the rise. It may be Luddite of me, but I like to be in control of my own accounts, my own life. It gives me the illusion of controlling my own future. But cynicism and paranoia aside, surely it both simpler and more effective to apply the Einstein quote – and first make your life as simple as possible, before paying someone else to take over the small-print of your to-do list? Because you may well find that it’s no longer worthwhile (much less necessary) to outsource anything at all. And you’ll still have a lot more free time on your hands than you’re used to.

Return to Complexcity

It has been something of a struggle to reacclimatise to London life. I’ve never really had Post Holiday Syndrome before, but I did this time. It’s that flustered trance in which you walk around for a week while trying to get your head around a) the 1003 emails in your inbox, b) the leftover stuff from your last project, c)  the logistics of the new project, as well as d) all the logistical life stuff: exercise, commuting, washing, shopping, rent, bills, contracts, fees, ironing, filing, shredding and cleaning.

Life is bewilderingly, almost depressingly complex, especially in a megacity. A large part of me wants to pull the duvet over my head and opt out for a few more days or  weeks.

I have tried to make the transition back to my usual life as gradual as possible, to make it less shocking, less jarring, but it’s still a bumpy ride. I guess the problem is that while I was travelling, my world shrank to the present, as it does on the road, even as my horizons expanded, as they do when you experience new places and things.

Is this where the iLife falls down? Because it must bring all the complexity of modern urban life with it – even if it’s all online, all virtual. You still have to worry about, exercise, commuting, washing, shopping, rent, bills, contracts, fees, ironing, firewalls, encryption and cleaning. Granted, if you take it to the extreme of living in a hotel, you can lose cleaning – and probably washing, ironing and shopping from that list, but it creates more in the way of rent and fees. Simpler in concept, but not necessarily simpler in execution (depending on how many different people you end up paying and how long between hotel bills).

I have been researching ways to ease back in:  taking my lunch break outside the building, not staying later than necessary, prioritising and saying no. But the trouble with easing back in is that you still end up back in the thick of it. And I don’t want that. I’d like to try to keep some small semblance of the simplicity of my life on the road in my normal day-to-day. I’d like to find a way to stay waist-deep at most in the swirling currents of hectic city life, not be swept again out of my depth.

head out on the highway

Having just returned from one adventure, I'm already looking for the next one. As inviting as home is,  I've always been susceptible to the Road Trip. I have an itchy throttle hand as well as itchy feet. I want to explore the world, to see and experience new things. But the more I travel the more I question what it is about the Road that romances me: the novelty and adventure, or the simplicity?
When you're travelling, your world comes down to a microcosm of the present moment, the present surrounding, your current day, that particular adventure. It's very liberating not to worry about the past or the future to nearly the extent we normally do.
Your possessions are simplified to what you brought and what you've bought. All you have is in one place, in one suitcase if you're a seasoned traveller who's learned from past mistakes and aching shoulders. So why can't we live like that, or more like that, all the time?
One of the attractions of the iLife is that it's a lifestyle based on the simplicty of travelling: minimal possessions, because entertainment is virtual, minimal logistical issues because everything is digital, online, cloud-based. It's a gypsy freedom that still has all the mod-cons and comforts of home, as conferred by technology (and trust therein. Which is the bit I lack. But I'm working on it).

One Suitcase Rule

So I went away for two weeks, on a road trip that required careful  packing: balancing legal requirements and necessary gear with clothes,  cameras and cosmetics.
I tried to plan my packing carefully, therefore, instead of my usual last minute chucking in of anything clean that doesn't need ironing. This time I did internet research on packing lists and tips, and found a wealth of information and conflicting advice for every conceivable type of journey. There are websites that make checklists for you, based on who you are, where you're going, how you're travelling and what you plan to do when you get there. You can - and I did - distract yourself for hours with these online gadgets. I looked at long range weather forecasts and histories for the areas I was travelling through, and thought and agonized and thought and agonized for days until I had what I thought was the most pared down list possible.
Turns out I still packed far more than I needed. I could have got my three bags down to one, even given the bulkiness of my waterproofs. All of which makes me wonder why we think we need more stuff than we actually do. Why do we have such an inaccurate sense of what we can and can't do without? Contingency packing is all very well, but it's all in the odds. Maybe I'm just not good at judging them.