Saturday, August 15, 2015

Simplicity as a Principle

Simplicity is a behavioral attitude to see things as and what and where they are and be content and cool as it is.

People are complex by nature, but to dwell on complexity is to complicate an implicate order that is naturally simple. Getting to simple is not easy for most people because they rather follow the traditions and set rules and regulations in society. They don't bother to remove the dust around them or want to question the unknown, or challenge the status quo, out of fear. So how to address complexity, and what's the advantage to set simplicity as a principle and live with it?


Simplicity is a behavioral attitude to see things as and what and where they are and be content and cool as it is: Simplicity is the source of complication, and complications are the source of simplicity. Often human cannot live the life with simplicity and keep making it complicated, and when it is complicated we make it more complicated instead of simplifying. Very rare case we find people with simple mind, simple thought and who gets on to simplifying everything being passionate for simplicity, be it thought, procedures, systems, life, nature, though we know every intelligence has certain complexity in it, complexity is not equal to complication, complexity is sometimes necessary, but complication can always be optimized. Logically, simplifying the complicated thing is an optimal and smart choice, for most of the people, it is the other way round. They make simplicity as the source to make anything and everything complicated. It is not that they are not intelligent, it is just that they can't live with simplicity.


Systems thinking is a methodology for addressing complexity: Firstly Systems Thinking is not a methodology, it is underpinned by several fundamental concepts. Holism is just one. In a corporate world, you will find the attitude of complicating things in systems and procedures and people love to hang on to the complications and express how they are experts in dealing with complications. Overcoming complication and managing complexity become one of the biggest challenges in business today. Systems Thinking allows you to see the whole, in terms of its inner processes, its interactions with external systems, its components, the specific interactions amongst them, etc. Framing context provides a coherent picture. Thus, context is requisite for leveraging Systems Thinking in problems solving and clarifying complexity.


Simplicity does make a peaceful mind, therefore, a peaceful life, and a peaceful world: Labels influence the mind to look at things their way which could be the root of all complications. Complication causes uncertainty, insecurity and a sense of incompetence. Without being simple, is it possible to be peace? Peace is a mental status but to achieve this, do you really need to be simple? Or for a peaceful person is it required to be simple? When you try to intellectualize every thought, life becomes more confusing but simplicity welcomes peace because life is less complex and, therefore, easier. So simplicity can harmonize, and create synergy to let positive energy flow.  


Complexity arises not from nothing. Humans create, though unintentionally in most cases their own problems. Therefore, they have to untie the knots they made themselves, how could you shoot the tangles to see from the different angle, how could you leverage creative thinking to discover the alternative way for problem-solving, and how could you apply Systems thinking to manage complexity via optimizing and integration, there are still layers of complexity in simplifying, but you know the elegant solution when you see it.


 

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