The Diary
of
Anne Ku

28 November 2000 Tuesday

SIMPLIFY THE COMPLEX

"It's easy to complicate things, but difficult to simplify the complex."

How ironic, I thought to myself. Those that truly know, will be able to explain and distill the complex to a simple strand of truth. Meanwhile, those who don't, will try to complicate things. Throughout my life, I've been challenged by the complex. In my youth, I prided myself in being able to recite complexity and frighten people off. People who spoke in complexity that I didn't understand MUST be smart, I thought.

Somewhere along the way, I learned the words "so what." My attitude changed. If I didn't learn anything from a lecture, it wasn't my fault - but the lecturer's. It's up to the speaker to make the audience understand. It's up to the editor to make his/her readers comprehend. What can one possibly gain by making things more complicated?

But our world is becoming more and more complicated. Problems are no longer "pure." No longer confined to one discipline. No longer one-dimensional, but multiple. Who will simplify the complexity?

Yesterday

Tomorrow