A quote commonly attributed to Albert Einstein: “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.” (Probably not entirely accurate, but it doesn’t make much difference.)

He was talking about science, of course, where it’s true for many, many reasons (some of which might surprise you). But I think he might as well have talked about life itself. If people were capable of following this simple maxim, the world might be a very different place. Instead, people are always making things too complicated (e.g. rituals), or too simple (e.g. politics), often even both at the same time. A world in turmoil.

I’ve been thinking about how much I’m following this principle myself, and I think it might actually explain things about me that I was never really able to explain before, even to myself. Hmm.

My style, my taste in music, my way of thinking, even my life decisions, and so on, all seem to fall into such a pattern, even though I just always did it by intuition, not by a deliberate principle I followed.

People always found me strange: here I am, a man with a demonstrated capacity of efficiently solving highly complex problems, an ability to learn almost anything, and to perhaps appreciate the beauty of the immense complexity of the fractal patterns, profound principles, and even strange mathematics, of the universe itself – but also a man of quite simple tastes. I don’t listen to sophisticated music (bubblegum pop is good enough for me). I don’t eat fancy food. I don’t wear stylish clothes. I don’t show off, or even speak much, if I don’t feel I have to. I don’t bother with status symbols; I don’t even have a car. I make no serious attempt at appearing sophisticated, intellectual, or even attractive. I don’t try to elevate my social status, even though I could. Why not? Why don’t I take pride in surrounding myself with things that make me look clever and successful, like others seem to? I could even have been wealthy, why haven’t I wanted to be?

Now I’ve finally found a possible explanation. Perhaps something deep within me always had an preference for keeping things simple. Perhaps it knew that simplicity is the key to true wisdom, and wanted to keep my mind open for it. And if so, I hope it succeeded. By not weighing me and my free mind down with unnecessary complexity, perhaps I’ll someday be able to, in a sense, spread my wings and fly. Now I remember a series of dreams from my days as a child, where I did just that. I never could figure those dreams out back then. Did they hold a clue?

To most of us, life on Earth is serious business. And thus, we tend to treat the little things here as more complex than they are. (And if that wasn’t enough, we also tend to treat the big things as less complex than they are.)

Perhaps it’s only by not doing that, and by keeping things as simple as possible (but no simpler), that you might be able to rise above everything, see new perspectives, fly off, and go where no one has gone before. It can imply tremendous sacrifices, but perhaps now I’m starting to understand why I’ve always been so willing to make them.

As a child, I dreamt of touching the sky, and the dream never truly died. Perhaps that’s as simple as it gets. And who knows, I might get there yet.