Friday, June 12, 2009

Simplicity of People

Many people whom I find interesting tell me that they are a very simple person. Sometimes they say this in comparison to me. I find this interesting, because sometimes I don't find their thoughts/actions/personality simple at all.

This is not difficult to explain. Simplicity of a person comes from the amount of "focus" they have. A "focused" person would have one ultimate goal, theme, mission, motivation or statement that would explain almost all their actions. Their individual actions and decisions can seem strange to an onlooker - even insane, but if one understands the "focus" of the person, the actions would be self explanatory. This is why Howard Roark strikes us to be such a simple person: we understand his focus, and all his actions - however strange - stems from that focus.

Thus it is easy to find ourselves to be simpler than others, because we understand the motivations behind our thoughts and actions better than we understand anyone else's.

Yet most of us are not like a fictional character: we are imperfect. Even if we understand what our "focus" is, not 100% of our actions are consistent with it. Why? Fear and laziness. (And perhaps other reasons too.) Fear, laziness, and other setbacks adds complications: they make us hypocrites, acting against our true self. It is therefore difficult for an average person to be simple.

Simplicity requires us to align all our actions with our thoughts. To be simple is thus a true accomplishment. Kudos to all of you who achieves it.

End of Entry