📝 Life should be complicated

Earlier, I shared a brief thought on this well-known quote (fully quoted here for context):

Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.

~ Confucius

May your desires be simple yet focused, your interests rich and complex, and your experiences unexpectedly remarkable. May your life be meaningful and sufficiently complicated.

I am giving myself an opportunity to explore this sentiment publicly and share my thoughts with you behind this statement.

As humans, we seek rich, satisfying lives and that richness comes along with complexity. Think of how your favorite book, song, story, game, movie, or art attaches significance to you personally through multiple layers of meaning, depth, and relevance.

We need complexity even though we crave simplicity. Therefore, the key is balance: too simple is boring or uneventful while too complex is confusing or frustrating. Most importantly, recognize that ideal level of complexity is a moving target. As we become more expert in a particular domain, we prefer complexity.

Consider the quest for the perfect drink of tea. This pursuit has been around for thousands of years. While creation is limited to a few essential ingredients and processes, we attach enormously complex ceremony around it to enhance our enjoyment of the experience. The skilled maker will continually face the competing priorities of convenience and perfection.

What can we learn from this? Each person will value simplicity and complexity in different areas of their life. As one example, we might desire simplicity in our personal finances but prefer complexity as we pursue physical fitness. Our interest, skill, and taste will change with time, so our response to complexity also change. Our inherent desire for happiness and fulfillment through complexity will eventually lead to required adjustments. Here, the essential lesson is to regularly assess and rebalance priorities appropriately throughout life.

Evidently, we add complexity as we pursue fulfillment in our lives. But does adding complexity also make our life complicated? Are complex and complicated even the same thing? I will borrow some definitions from the scientific field and mathematics to define dynamic systems. It somehow seems fitting to describe a human as a dynamic system!

A system is a name for a given object of study in some field that could be abstract or concrete; elementary or composite; linear or nonlinear; simple or complicated; complex or chaotic. Complex systems are highly composite, built from very large numbers of subsystems (also often composites) with mutually beneficial interactions that result in a rich and collective behavior as a whole. Chaotic systems can have very few interactions between sub units but the way they interact in intricate (difficult to understand) patterns. Simple systems only have very few parts that also behave according to very simple laws. Complicated systems can have very many parts but each part has specific functional roles which are guided by very simple rules.

Let me highlight key attributes of each system type with concrete examples. In the study of biology and living organisms, you encounter many complex systems. A bullfrog is composed of an enormous number of cells, many organs, body parts, and yet is a singular cohesive entity with fascinating and complex behaviors. In astronomy, studying the motion of galaxies in our universe would be more like a chaotic system. By our observation, its behavior appears random but is generated by simple, non‐random, deterministic processes: the real complexity is in its evolution (how the system changes over time by countless iterations of some very simple rule) rather than the system itself. In chemistry, combustion is a simple chemical reaction where oxygen and energy can generate of heat and light in the form of flame. After the right amount of initial friction to convert potential energy to kinetic energy (e.g., lighting a match), a fire will usually continue to burn in a self-sustaining combustion reaction with sufficient fuel to maintain it. In horology, the study and science of time measurement, a watch is used to observe and track time. A mechanical watch is a complicated system. In fact, a watch can have additional aptly-named “complications”, which is any function offered by a timepiece in addition to its primary function of keeping the time. Every component of a mechanical watch is carefully considered, crafted with precision, and provides a specific contribution toward every feature to the watch owner.

How might these definitions apply to us as humans and what might we learn from them?

All individuals require food, water, clothing and shelter to physically survive. For proper mental, emotional, and social health, an individual also obtain more knowledge, connection with others, and life experiences (such as education) that will instill identity and purpose. As mentioned earlier, we will inevitably turn something simple and add complexity to obtain more fulfillment. Does that necessarily lead to something complicated?

When effort is applied to add complexity to something simple, a simple system will become a complex system (whether done actively or unintentionally is beside the point). The problem with this conversion process is that building complex systems that functions well for long periods of time is actually very hard. There is a reason why natural ecosystems on Earth take an extremely long time to develop and evolve over time. As you add more components to into any system where new pieces must also be well-integrated, mutually beneficial, fault-tolerant, and highly efficient to the system is incredibly difficult to say the least.

Have you ever decided to start a new life change and thought out an elaborate scheme in your mind on how you might accomplish it? Perhaps the idea is popular or something you feel you should be doing… losing weight, adjusting eating habits, getting more sleep, or becoming fluent in a new language! You add a bunch of new things to do in your schedule and perhaps even start out well. After a little more time, perhaps you miss part of the routine or get sick one day. The actual behavior with the routine ends up being different on each day, due to random factors.

This example highlights the main problem with added complexity; it is unsustainable without effort. Furthermore, more individual components in a complex system increases its probability to break down. That is why an ecosystem in nature like a coral reef or a complex biological system like the human body will start to malfunction when an essential component fails. Complexity does not work without constant maintenance, organization, or adaptation.

Additions or changes to complex systems break down completely unless these components entering the system adapt and become well integrated through intentional effort. The constant exposure to ongoing changes and micro-mutations are essential for evolutionary progression. Some change can be so impactful that a complex system can convert into a chaotic system. Think of a natural disaster like a hurricane or some sort of life-altering event in your personal life. These can cause a complete breakdown of a complex system where surviving components or new parts can enter to form the foundation for a new system.

So, what about a complicated system? How does that come about and how do we get there? Consider the progression of a human baby to adulthood. Upon birth, a baby has relatively simple needs and embodies a simple system in terms of successful care and progress. Babies needs to eat, sleep, bond with and rely upon caregivers, and focus on physical growth for survival and progression. Throughout childhood, children continue to increase in capabilities and develop new complex behaviors in multiple dimensions: physical, emotional, mental, social, and personality. Their lives become unique complex systems and many develop special advantages compared to peers in the same age group. Approaching adulthood, complexity continues to developed but increased contact with chaotic influences and life-altering events become inevitable. These complex individuals are sometimes reshaped, broken down, reformed, and refined into a more advanced complex system. Out of these experiences, a fully adult individual (hopefully and eventually) emerges. A person with a mature and unique set of experience, talent, and capabilities. Certain components of that complex person will be highly specialized and advantageous for its survival and success in society and in life.

Eventually, we realize that we can only expand and excel in complexity in a limited number of directions. Advancing in complexity alone can only get us so far. Continuing to pursue opportunities in every direction is futile and unattainable. We also begin to see the value of and yearn for more simplicity. Specialization and our desire for self-fulfillment prepare us for the path to become a complicated system.

In some respects, understanding the difference between ‘complex’ and ‘complicated’ is difficult at first because there are overlapping elements by definition and the two words are often interchangeable in common usage. Perhaps explaining what each is not will be easier: complex is the opposite of simple (typically when something has many parts to consider) while complicated is the opposite of easy (typically when something is hard to do or understand).

If you recall earlier, a complex system and complicated system can both have many components within it. The main difference is that, in a complicated system, each part must have a specific functional role which are guided by very simple rules. Complex systems are also highly redundant and fault-tolerant whereas complicated systems are less so. Again, complex systems are made of composite parts (think of the trillions of cells within the human body and how the death of a single cell will be rapidly compensated by its peers to keep the system healthy). On the other hand, a desktop computer would fail catastrophically with the removal or failure of a complicated piece of equipment, such as the processor, and would be difficult to replace quickly.

We eventually de-emphasize or remove duplicate and overly redundant components in our focused pursuit to adopt simplicity out of sheer necessity or, more likely, our efforts to refine our special capabilities for efficiency and self-actualization. Very much like an elaborate mechanical pocket watch, every component of our lives is carefully considered, refined, and serves a specific purpose to either ourselves or as a contribution to society and others we care about. We add or surface “complications” that we are willing and capable to bring forth. We can intentionally accelerate that journey by observing peers, simple systems and rules that appeal to our nature, and intentionally encountering chaotic systems and events to introduce more potential changes for the better.

Like the skilled tea maker, we progress from simple to complex. Along the way, we observe and dive into chaotic forces to drive and accelerate change. Eventually, we embrace the complicated. Focused in our drive for simplicity yet complex enough to enhance our own joy and of benefit to others. That tension between convenience and perfection will ever persist, no matter which field or specialty we pursue.

Did Confucius really intend to express our innate need for complexity and our final state as complicated individuals? Or was he stating how we can make our own lives unnecessarily difficult?

That exercise I leave to you, dear reader.

May your desires be simple yet focused, your interests rich and complex, and your experiences unexpectedly remarkable. May your life be meaningful and sufficiently complicated.