Simplicity

Beneath this post, you will find some helpful information for this week's homework.


I talk a lot about simplicity, and I want to set something striaght right now. There is a big difference between SIMPLE and SIMPLISTIC. Simplistic is when somebody dumbs something down for somebody else, because the one thinks that the other is too stupid to understand that which is presented. To be SIMPLISTIC with your work means that you think that everybody in the world is an idiot. And you will therefore present things (works of art or otherwise)in a tone that even a first grader of moderate intelligence would find demeaning.  


But SIMPLICITY- ah- that's something all together different. To be simple means to be clear, to be consice, to sift through the unnecesary stuff and go right to the heart of the matter. Simplicity is true understanding. To be simple means to be graceful, unpretensious, straightforward, and not use four values when only three are enough. To be simple is to take things in all of their sometimes dizzying complexity, and to present those things anew- in  a beautiful, orgainzed, clear way.    


All of the TRULY great artists, writers, musicians, scientests, and philosophers have taken very complex things and re-presented them to us in beautiful simplicity. It is, then, your job to do likewise.


"There is no genius without simplicity." - Leo Tolstoy