The mind is everything. What you think you become.
-Buddha
Philosophy
Simplicity
I am an engineer by trade, and Wife points out that I have an engineer mind.
While I spend much of my time working with complex systems, I understand that simplicity is king. Simplicity is actually quite difficult to achieve because it takes work. You start off doing what you need to do, over time things grow and it will become more complex and kinda messy. You must take the time to stop, step back, and reengineer and rearchitect things to regain that simplicity. Typically this will mean you must discard and cast off.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery said:
Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
In the practice of the Tao,
every day something is dropped.
Less and less do you need to force things,
until finally you arrive at non-action.
Simple is not easy, but it is best.
I’ve seen a few things in the past couple days that reinforce this.
I stumbled across this blog posting on “What is good code?”
Good code is simple. Even complex good code is comprised of simple building blocks. Good code hides or cuts through the complexity in the problem, to provide a simple solution – the sign of a true coding genius is that he makes hard problems look easy, and solves them in such a way that anyone can understand how it was done (after the fact). Simplicity is not really a goal in its own right, though; it’s just that by means of being simple, code is more readable, discoverable, testable, and maintainable, as well as being more likely to be robust, secure and correct! So if you keep your code simple (as simple as possible, but no simpler), it is more likely to be good code – but that is by no means sufficient in and of itself.
And all of this talk of simplicity isn’t just something for the world of engineering…. I think it applies to all things in life, and I think it’d do well to be applied to government.
Witness the mess there is in classifying sensitive information: (h/t Slashdot)
Protecting and classifying sensitive information such as social security numbers shouldn’t be that hard, but perhaps not surprisingly the US government has taken complicating that task to an art form.
It seems that designating, safeguarding, and disseminating such important information involves over 100 unique markings and at least 130 different labeling or handling routines, reflecting a disjointed, inconsistent, and unpredictable system for protecting, sharing, and disclosing sensitive information, according to the watchdogs at the Government Accountability Office.
Read the full article (it’s short) to see just how messy the problem is. This is not simplicity, this is about the furthest thing from simplicity. How does this make life easier?
Then I see this flowchart on Department of Defense acquisitions:
The Integrated Defense Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics Life Cycle Management System -- MY BRAIN HURTS!
Wow. Even the name (The Integrated Defense Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics Life Cycle Management System) is a complex beast.
I truly hope no one considers that to be a simple, streamlined process.
Have you ever noticed, any time the government talks about streamlining or improving their process, they always create some new group to do so? Nothing ever gets shut down or shed or cast off… it’s always grows.
If people are tired at how inefficient government is, at how bloated and slow it is, how complex, how confusing… why aren’t we working to truly simplify things? Why does no one believe in casting off? Why do we call them “law-makers”, as that seems to imply all they can do is make more laws instead of refining or repealing what we already have?
Why don’t we have any politicians that run on a platform of repealing, stripping down, and simplifying? Why is a discussion of “loss of government jobs” considered a bad thing? closing of government agency a bad thing?
Consider how truly simple things are better in life (or at least, consider how those ugly complex things make life difficult). Work towards the ideal.
To be the good guys…
To be the good guys… you have to be the good guys. Seems so simple.
– Dock
Thought for the day
From Mazu mozo!
The primary cause of disorder in ourselves is the seeking of reality promised by another.
-Krishnamurti
A few simple things
I’ve been reading a lot of news this morning.
One reason I tend to avoid most news is because it’s depressing. Why is it that what constitutes “news” is negative? Hatred, murder, violence, destruction, corruption, lying, scandal. Granted sometimes life is that way, but there’s an overwhelming focus on such matters in “news”. It’s a major reason I avoid 24-hour news channels because all they contain is various idiots spouting off their opinions as fact. They drive so much of the tension today. Turn off the TV and go outside. It paints a picture of a horrible world where everyone is a predator, everyone is evil, no one can be trusted. We begin to believe it and turn those lies into truth, or at least affect things enough such that we behave in that manner.
But if there’s one thing humans are good at, it’s destruction, especially self-destruction. It’s easy to destroy, it’s difficult to create. It’s easy to listen to rumor, it’s hard to find fact and truth. We don’t like difficult things.
*sigh*
I then ponder much of the negative stuff going on. I begin to wonder how much of this would be an issue of people abided by a few things:
Be responsible for yourself.
Treat others as you want to be treated. (Yes, The Golden Rule isn’t perfect, but understand the spirit).
Leave me alone and I’ll leave you alone. (Don’t tread on me.) You can live your life as you wish, I can live my life as I wish. We may find each other’s lives and choices repulsive, but so long as we’re not infringing upon the other’s ability to life their life as they wish, you can live out your repulsive life while I live out my repulsive life.
Realize that there are other people in this world and those other people may have values, morals, and beliefs radically different from you. They may make choices in life that you don’t like. But realize, you look just the same to them as they do to you. Would you want them telling you your values, morals, and beliefs are horrible and should be banned? This gets back to treating others as you’d want to be treated.
Respect is something to be earned, and that also means it’s something that can be lost. Behave accordingly because respect is measured through the eyes of others.
Beware the slippery slope, even if at the start it seems like you’ll be gaining something good.
Have balance in life. Moderation (nothing in excess).
It kinda harkens back to that “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten” stuff.
It was that this country was founded upon such notions (look at why the first Europeans came to this land). But it seems we’ve forgotten it.
But we can get it back. It just starts with each one of us, deciding to live our lives that way and then doing so each and every day. It will be a struggle, most people won’t understand, but I believe it will be worth it in the end.
Or am I just being too much of an optimist? too much of an idealist? Are we just doomed from the get-go?
Optimist vs. Pessimist
My Dad spent much of his life involved in politics in some manner or other. Consequently, most of my life has had me indirectly involved in politics. I recall being a kid and being dragged to all sorts of functions and speeches and mostly just hating it (not a kid’s idea of fun). But for some reason, there was one speech that was memorable to me.
Dad knew a good speech sometimes starts out with a joke relevant to the topic. I don’t remember the body of the speech nor who he was delivering the speech to, but I do remember the joke. It went something like this:
There were these two boys: one was an optimist and one was a pessimist.
A team of scientists wanted to study their behavior, so they put each of the two boys in a room. They put the pessimist in a room filled with all the latest toys and fun things — anything that a young boy would want to have and then some. They put the optimist in a room knee-deep in manure. The scientists left the boys alone in their rooms, then after some time had passed, came back to see what the boys were doing.
The pessimist was sitting in the middle of the room, his arms crossed and a scowl on his face. He hadn’t touched any of the toys, just sat there.
When the scientists looked into the optimist’s room, they saw him picking up a piece of manure and flinging it over his shoulder. Then he picked up another one, flung it, another and flung it, and kept repeating this action. The scientists wondered what he was doing so they stopped the boy and asked him.
The boy replied, “With all this manure, there’s got to be a pony in here somewhere.”
and laughter followed.
I admit, at the time I didn’t fully understand the depth of the joke. Yeah I understood it at some level, and for whatever reason the joke stuck with me — probably the mental caricature I conjured of some boy flinging pieces of poop over his shoulder. 🙂
As I’ve progressed through my life, the joke has never left my mind. It’s always been a reminder of how to look at life. When you have good things and all you do is bitch and complain, life’s going to be pretty unhappy for you. But even if life hands you a mountain of shit, if you can smile at it and find some sort of good in it, life works out a lot better.
Things go the way the mind goes.
Still -> Calm -> Quickly
Motion arises from stillness. So if your mind is still, your mind is calm, then your mind is free to move quickly.
— Brian Enos
From the Matt Burkett DVD 3, the interview with Brian Enos. Enos is a shootist philosopher.
Rules for Instructors? Or just good rules for life?
I still don’t know if I’m going to study Aikido, but I am doing a lot of research on the topic. I came across these “13 Rules for Aikido Instructors” (yes I know, they only list 12). What I found interesting was, they weren’t just good rules for Aikido instructors, but generally were good humble rules for life. You may have to modify the wording slightly (e.g. #3 becomes simply “do not criticize”), but it’s pretty solid.
I opted to reprint them here, with some minor formatting changes. They are things I want to remember for myself.
35 years ago, in pictures
Riveting. Take the time to look at it, as the photos are iconic and moving. It puts many things into perspective… or at least, it should.
While I accept and acknowledge that sometimes violence is the answer, it’s certainly an ugly answer… and I wish it didn’t have to be an answer. The realist in me carries a gun and studies martial crafts. The idealist in me wants peace and love. The optimist in me strives for that ideal.
Stuff From Hsoi 