…join me in the search for the simplicity found on the other side of complexity!
” I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841 – 1935)
Associate justice on the US Supreme Court (1902 – 1932).
Sometimes Holmes’ wonderful, elegant, and often elusive “simplicity on the other side of complexity” comes not from external system improvements, not from better technology, but from simple practice. You’ve experienced this. Remember riding a bicycle? Now remember learning to ride a bicycle?
Consider the first 10,000 serious photos you take. So much complexity! ISO. Lens selection. Shutter speed. F-stop. Depth of field. Hyperfocal distance. Metering. Flash exposure compensation. Composition…. Composition!? Even using the camera’s “automatic” setting, you feel lucky to get the subject in view, in focus, and well-lit more than half the time! And before you can view or share your images, there is the workflow: transfer from camera to computer. RAW vs JPEG? Please, I’m still figuring out where the files landed on my disk! (Computer – what do you mean I’m “OUT OF HARD DRIVE SPACE”!?)
Layers in Photoshop or Gimp? Not until you’ve mastered cropping, white balance, tint, contrast, tone curves, levels, the menus and keyboard shortcuts, and …. and then, suddenly… you just understand. We say “It comes naturally.” But it didn’t. It came from practice. From repetition. You lost more than one great photo to a painful, now seemingly stupid mistake. A lot more. But that is ok – because back then you had no idea. And now? Now you just “know.” The right thing “just happens.”
Bikes. Photos. Life. It’s a lot less about better equipment and a lot more about mental memory, muscle memory, and creative memory. It’s not always easy. In fact, it’s hardly ever easy. Sometimes it’s impossible. At least it feels impossible today. But for that problem? Well, there is always more practice.
PLEASE NOTE: All Photos on this site are Copyrighted and may not be used without written permission.
“The essential thing ‘in heaven and earth’ is, apparently, that there should be long obedience in the same direction; there thereby results, and has always resulted in the long run, something which has made life worth living.” – Neitzsche
I agree! So much of what we call “growth” and innovation is a thinly veiled attempt to avoid the hard work of sticking with something. Instead of digging one well a thousand feet deep, we dig a thousand holes one foot deep. Instead of drinking the cool refreshment of from a deep well, we come to think life is only about digging. If you want to truly mature in any endeavor, you must eventually give up being a seeker and become a finder.