Complicating is simple; simplifying is difficult.
Human beings are very good at making life complicated!
Paradoxically, the more we study, the more we tend to complicate things, as though education needed to add complexity to justify itself.
In study and work, intelligent and brilliant people stand out through their ability to explain complex phenomena and topics clearly.
In my view, complication is a defensive weapon used by those who have not mastered their subject.
Whenever someone tries to explain something they have not understood to others, they always end up giving a much more complicated picture than the reality; typically, they also make heavy use of jargon and grand terms from the field they have not understood 🤔.
“If you cannot explain it simply, you have not understood it well enough” (Albert Einstein)
Being able to explain what you have studied is precisely at the heart of learning methods, such as the famous techniques of Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman.
It makes my skin crawl when I hear: it is complicated, it is difficult!
There are complex problems, but not complicated ones!
Complexity requires a greater number of logical steps, which can nevertheless be broken down and made simple themselves. It is only a matter of time and attention (unfortunately, both are becoming scarce).
More dangerous than the muddler is the trivialiser!
We could say: complicating is easy, simplifying is difficult, trivialising is diabolical!
“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not more simplistic.” (Albert Einstein)
The quote above from our friend Albert captures the harm done by the trivialiser. They alter reality to make it seem simpler! But it is only an illusion! If strategic or tactical decisions are then made on that basis, we can imagine the danger we face.
It is as though I trained at basketball with the hoop half a metre lower: I would do phenomenal things in training, but when I played a game with hoops at 3.05 m, that simplification would come back to bite me with interest!!
The problem is that, from the outside, someone who does not know the subject cannot distinguish the brilliant simplifier from the mere trivialiser.
In my working life so far, I have met far more trivialisers than simplifiers 😉
One trick for forcing simplification is to have little time! It may seem paradoxical, but when you have several things to do and little time, your brain sharpens its ingenuity and finds the best way.
"People should put as much zeal into simplifying their lives as they put into complicating them." (Henri Louis Bergson)
Life is short: let's simplify it!