Maeda's SIMPLICITY

Opposites Distract

Very unsmooth.

A few years ago, one of my friends was given critical feedback from his upper management regarding his chances for promotion. The feedback was something along the lines of, "Your statement of purpose is ... weak."

Eager to get a better understanding of this important point of feedback, my friend asked, "What do you mean by weak? Can you be more specific?"

A long, pensive pause followed with the reply, "By weak ... we mean, not strong." Naturally my friend was quite puzzled by the lack of clarity in this definition. In fact, the definition was quite correct. However to define a term by its oppositeness of an opposite is ... weak. I mean, not strong.

I'm so accustomed to seeing smooth leaves growing on trees that I was surprised the other day when I found a type of leaf growing on trees in wet conditions that was bumpy, or not smooth. Was my first reaction to associate with bumpy? Or was it not smooth. For some reason, I think that not smooth was what brought me to bumpy. Thus I began to wonder, does one think of something as not complex or not simple before they think of simple or complex. One thing's for certain: thinking about thinking ain't simple. Or do I mean complex?

Posted by maeda at June 15, 2005 09:37 PM