Complex Reality

I fell off the daily writing train last week, breaking my chain since the beginning of the year. I got off track on Monday due to the holiday and couldn’t seem find my stride to picking it back up. I did however spend quite a bit of time trying to finish Mastery, by Robert Greene (funny how we prioritize).

Throughout the book he talks about the importance of understanding reality and the complexities of the modern world live in. Despite having some familiarity with the book this concept stood out.

While grappling with trying to understand the nuances of a complex reality my son interrupted me. He asked me why we had decided not get him a phone this summer in preparation for a school trip he’s taking.He asked me what he had done wrong and we we changed our ming on his ability to handle the responsibility of a potentially life changing object.

During this interaction I realized I was staring at complex reality. My son and I had a 40 minute conversation around the addictive nature of phones, the time, energy, and financial commitment to having one. Plus the influence this will have on his younger sister and our decisions around her getting a phone.

It’s clear that this seemingly simple decision: whether or not to get phone, is much more complicated than the decision itself. As I saw this complexity I could start seeing them everywhere. Every aspect of my life brings with it layer upon layer of complexity. It’s overwhelming.

My brain isn’t suited to handle this level of complexity all the time all at once. Decision fatigue is real. Rather than recognizing the complexity of everything it’s easier to simplify and then process. Reducing a situation into tropes or archetypes and then making broad decision based on my broad categorization. In one vein this is how I have to function, any other way is inefficient and ineffective. But if I allow myself to sit with my process of categorization I can see I was ignoring complexity. Passing them over because it was too hard.

Simplification should streamline the process in order to make way and celebrate complexity, not overshadow it. Theoretically this streamlining will lessen the overwhelm of such complexity and increase capacity for the daily onslaught. Reality is complex. Anything I do to reduce or ignore the complexity is only giving me a false sense of what’s real.