It's Not Really That Simple

A recent conversation made me wonder that there is a strong tendency to perceive ‘simplicity’ as a personality attribute in a very stereotypic manner. When a girl is said to be ‘simple’, there is often an implicit assumption that she is the ‘holier-than-thou, god-fearing, take home to mommy’ type or a ‘behenji’. Being simple is not being naïve, foolish or anachronistically conservative. Simplicity and sophistication aren’t mutually exclusive at all. I am of the opinion that it is much more about having simplicity of thought and not having countless different insatiable pursuits in life, but rather having just a few variables that you derive happiness and joy from. Even if she is materialistic, few other gifts would give as much joy as that very affordable clichéd red rose.

Thanks to the abuse of ‘simplicity’ as a personal attribute by the pathetic modern day mass media, being ‘complicated’ or ‘sophisticated’ seems to be the next coolest thing to do if you can’t be a rockstar. Its not just the case with the ‘people’ side of simplicity being abused. Lengthy reports, unnecessary graphs, forceful appendices to drive home the most simple and intuitive of points? We are at the heart of complicating things. Maybe it becomes necessary to justify our apparently fat paychecks. In that aspect, I totally concur with what one of my favorite marketing professors had to say, “If you can’t explain it in one line, Chief, you simply haven’t understood it well enough!”.

Doing justice to the topic at hand, I wouldn’t really drag on for the sake of dragging on just because I have an ‘ideal’ post length that I subconsciously feel that I should try and adhere to even if I don’t have any value to add. Ha, look at the sentence I have just written. In short, I could have just said, "I am signing off now as I don't have anything else to write'. But again, its not that easy being simple and ‘to-the-point’. Worst of all, it might not even be appreciated. So good luck being sophisticated and complicated :P

Gracias,

Anand