What is simple?
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary gives various definitions for simple: innocent, modest, stupid, credulous, unmixed, fundamental, etc.
In a world so seemingly complex as ours, what is simple?
I remember standing at a street corner in San Francisco many years ago. It was a hot summer’s afternoon, and I was waiting for the bus. There was a flowerbed full of marigolds nearby, and the pungent scent of the dark earth and orange flowers struck me forcefully like a slap. That incident stuck with me all these years.
Many years prior to that experience, I was riding in a truck in Colorado. Awaking after a nap at a stop by a river, I opened the door—sleep still clouding my brain—to be assaulted by a fog of evergreen aroma.
Scent is simple.
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17 Answers
Reality itself is simple. Complication only arises when we attempt to grasp it conceptually. Until then, things are just as they are. Simple. You caught a clear glimpse of that when the simple fact of the marigolds asserted itself (though even in recalling the incident, complication arises).
The utter simplicity of reality is the one constant of our lives, but we get lost in our own cloud of complication, only occasionally touching the simplicity.
Anything Pat Robertson doesn’t blame on females that have jobs? And the gays…
@Hawaii_Jake Purity. Think about it. Something pure on a bunch of levels is simple, straight forward and uncomplicated.
@tups That’s kind of complicated at times. Being an asshole is a lot simpler. :(
Nature itself is pretty simple.
I feel simple itself is a result of complication, such as the scent you experience is a result of a combination of things that exist around you. I understand that most people would define simple as truth and unmixed but the reality is something is always the result of something.
Best answer so far is @thorninmud
Reality is pretty simple. People make it complicated by not reducing concepts to their essential elements.
Simple is something uncomplicated, not stressful or mentally taxing. I’ve always thought of it as a good thing.
I can tell you what isn’t at the moment – divorce. So sad.
Actually, very little is simple if you look at it in depth. How nature works is a science of complicated systems. Scents are complicated combinations of factors. I like @DWW25921 ‘s definitions, but human reactions are rarely uncomplicated. Would that they were. We can ignore the complications, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there.
Simple = straightforward, not complex
@Adirondackwannabe It is my perception that real kindness is simple. If it’s not simple, it’s something else.
Agree with @thorninmud. Marble is simple. Michaelangelo’s David is complexity.
Simplicity depends on context. The unreflective experience of the scent of flowers can be considered simple. So too can principle behind the theory of evolution, which can be expressed quite simply, yet can be used to unify a vast range of natural phenomena, including just why those flowers smell so good.
Simple is everything you don’t have to write down in order to remember it, like E=mc^2. But what about Tsiolkovsky’s rocket equation?
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