simplicity
Last modified on September 01, 2021
Simplicity is a great virtue, but it requires hard work to achieve it and education to appreciate it. And to make matters worse: complexity sells better. - Edsger W. Dijkstra.
It seems like as life goes on, complexity just kinda accumulates sometimes. In some cases it might be unavoidable – we grow older and have more responsibilities, a codebase matures and takes on more functionality, etc. But it seems like simplicity is a good ideal to strive for, in certain ways.
Links to “simplicity”
Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS) (Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS))
Related to the idea of constraints supporting creativity–dead simple things, done again and again are extremely powerful.
Start simple and workable, and then unfold to something more complex. (Start simple and workable, and then unfold to something more complex.)
By induction, if you can progress from complexity \(k\) to \(k + 1\), you can progress infinitely.
Over time, I’ve gotten to know the amazing beast that is org-mode . It is astounding how much you can do—but perhaps even more impressive is that you can start using it to do interesting things from the first day. You can learn in 5 minutes how to create headlines, expand and collapse nodes, write text, etc. That is not hard. In that way, it is a simple tool.
This, I feel, should be part of my life philosophy. Wanna start a self-reflective practice? Make it extremely, dead, simple at first. Make it solid. Then, gradually, you can build from there. But you need that foundation to be laid down first, otherwise things are all like the kids who took caffeine or steroids…stunted growth, or premature experience.
Simple life philosophy. Simple running routine. Simple self-reflection routine. To start out with.
life philosophy
Thinking about the philosophy of how we should live our lives.
Some guiding principles:
- simplicity
- joy
- following curiosities deeply
- active/outward kindess