Monday, July 21, 2008

I has a complex...

Wow - its been almost half a year since I last posted and still the traffic trickles in! The clear winners are the hard drive failure entries (largely due to a link from another way more popular blog!) and the camera review. Go figure!

Today, I wanted to talk about complexity. I has it.

Much like the inane Wet Wet Wet song, complexity's all around me. And not just complexity - that I could live with, but needless complexity. Now I don't mean to use superlatives or make too wide a generalization, but everyone everywhere are making everything complicated.

Let's take a nice and easy example - a cup ramen (or pot noodle if you're so inclined). You'd think the instructions would be as simple as "cook with hot water". That gets the message across, anyone who can't figure it out probably doesn't deserve to eat it anyway! ( a little harsh, but such is the level of annoyance ) But no. Captain Complicated strikes again and you get a pot with half of the back filled with poorly translated English prompting you to "enter the cup from the top above the bottom" and "fill plentifully without overly with the water of hotness inside". (did I mention, engrish.com is one of my favorites?!)

I wouldn't be so effected if this kind of behavior didn't pop up everywhere! Nothing (another absolute for those keeping count!) is as complicated as everyone makes it out to be and yet we constantly bemoan the state of affairs we find ourselves in when it comes to everyday tasks like making coffee (there's 29 steps if you really want there to be), writing an email (it really doesn't have to be perfect when you're sending a picture of a cat to your mum), or going to the bathroom (the hands washing debate is long since over).

The long and the short of it is this - life is simple. It really is! Wherever your inspiration comes from, life is all about making yourself and those you love happy. Why make it any harder than that?

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