Life is like an onion. You peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep. —Carl Sandburg
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A friend asked me yesterday why life can be so complex.
A simple question, right?
I told her I would think about it, and she said, “Why don’t you write a post about it for me?”
This was more request than question, so I tasked myself with a post on simplifying complexity—A Guide to the Complexed.
And the concept that came to me this morning, as I sat down to write, was layers.
Layers of complexity.
Layers added over time, each over another.
Most things don’t start out complex.
Most things start out simple.
Then, as we develop our relationships, our jobs, and our activities, we lay down patterns of behavior—some healthy, others not.
Ironically, to simplify things in our psyches (so we don’t have to think about how we’re going to act), these behaviors become automatic, ingrained, and unconscious, like a layer of mud hardening and ultimately becoming rock.
And like rock layers, once one behavioral layer forms on top of a lower one, the lower layer becomes embedded and impossible—without cutting or shattering the rock—to remove.
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And like rock layers, once one behavioral layer forms on top of a lower one, the lower layer becomes embedded and impossible—without cutting or shattering the rock—to remove.
But how do these layers of complexity, and particularly unhealthy ones, accumulate and build?
My friend offered the suggestion that acquired complexity results from poor decision-making.
And there is truth in her words, because when we build a set of behaviors on poor decisions, they often lead us to make other poor decisions and end up facing—or avoiding—difficult and painful decisions to adjust and compensate for or ultimately correct the original mistake.
Been there.
Have you?
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But the root of complexity is, well, more complex than making poor decisions.
I’ve always believed there are two types of people—complicators and simplifiers.
Complicators generally complicate to compensate for their lacks and faults.
They make something obvious seem mysterious, something evident seem confusing, something easy seem difficult so they can maintain control over it, and they use complexity to hide something about themselves they don’t wish to reveal.
Think of the Great Oz, who is really nothing more than the little man behind the curtain.
Simplifiers value honesty, directness, and transparency.
They see through the curtain and have no patience for the little man with all his frightening illusions and scary special effects.
For simplifiers, the naked truth, in all its ugliness, is more beautiful than a pretty lie.
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For simplifiers, the naked truth, in all its ugliness, is more beautiful than a pretty lie.
Chances are you are either a simplifier or a complicator.
A layer of layers, or a stripper of crud.
In some cases, a simplifier pairs up with a complicator.
But this combination only works if the simplifier dominates.
If the complicator holds sway, the simplifier will find him or herself buried beneath layers of complexity.
And eventually, the simplifier will either dig out, or cry for help and call in the jackhammers.
I assert that you can tell in the first few minutes of conversation with someone whether he is a layer or she is a stripper.
And I hope these words have made complexity a bit simpler.
Originally published on Tom Aplomb
Photo—PunkToad/Flickr