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Simplicity over time

I don’t know if you are like me when I find a new idea or a new method that seems promising. At first I am overcome with a feeling of pride, but this is quickly followed by a return to reality and I realize it is too good to be true. This is particularly true when my idea relates to simplicity. I tell myself that back in time and in past or present civilizations, somebody, somewhere must have thought about it before me. How could I have discovered something so elusive? I must be on the wrong path because simplicity has been around for so long that it can’t be reinvented, not to mention that whatever is good about the idea is already being used.

Before diving into the other articles, I thought it would be good to establish a base of understanding of simplicity through definitions and quotations by familiar personalities.

One of the definitions I used is from the Larousse dictionary and reads as follows:
Simplicity: Something that is not very complicated, easy to understand, execute and use.

If we search a bit further, more interesting quotations can be found:

• Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication – Leonardo da Vinci (quite some time ago!)
• Once resolved, a problem seems utterly simplistic – Paulo Coelho
• The extraordinary attracts us for a moment, but simplicity holds our attention for longer because simplicity holds what is essential – Gary Winogrand
• Genius is simply the ability to convert that which is complicated into simplicity – unknown author

We could continue for quite some time because there are hundreds of thousands more, but I think the preceding quotations give us a clear understanding of simplicity. My brilliant idea involves applying this principle in everything we undertake.

To conclude, I would like to remind you that simplicity is a way of thinking, a way of doing that is inexorably part of a lifestyle that is founded on the desire to simplify things. What about you? Do you want to simplify how you do things?

Alain Desjardins

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