Simplicity

I believe... whatever doesn't kill you simply makes you... stranger.

So spake the great Heath Ledger, now resting in peace, in the very beginning of his immortalizing performance as The Joker in what was decidedly the movie of the decade, if not the millennium. Enough has been said about the movie, though, and I would rather not lose my sense of supreme singularity by adding to its still-burgeoning repository of reviews. Why begin my discussion on this note then? Well, you'll see.

Let further ado be damned. Listen to this: we live to die. Veracious? Yes, but surely not entirely so. We live till we die. More like it, perhaps? But still not accurate. We live, we make a mockery of simplicity, and then we die. BINGO. Point not taken? Well, of course, I know why. I figure I put it a little too straight in your face. For brevity, a little too simply. Let me thread your far-more convoluted cranial guts, then, with a brief and possibly enlivening enlightenment.

I am sure you have a picture of the human brain in your own specimen of it (some of you might even have the highly popular picture of the 'male' brain in front of yourselves-- the one with naked females for the twisting tissues-- and, you know what, you have my kudos for it). Yes, so, consider that picture and respond to this rather simple question. How complicated, exactly, does that mass of flesh and nerves look? How full of unfathomable twists and turns? Your answer, and that from everyone not interested in hurting my well-worn notion of rationality, would have to be 'very'. So, let me conclude. We, homo sapiens, have a very complicated brain to help us think. Q.E.D..

Imagine me now as Albert Einstein. I am human, very nearly, and I have a brain possibly more complicated than most. And yet, in the middle of a life that gave the world a huge chunk of nature's truth, I make a statement to this effect: "the secret to every successful journey is to think simple." Now, now. Have I suddenly turned crazy? Gone ga-ga, maybe? Or have I had enough of Physical balderdash to last me my seven lives? Not so easy, baby, no. You see, I be Albert Einstein, and I be sane till I meet death. Sane, and simple.

They say every passing hour makes us wiser. I wouldn't go so far as to proclaim that cookies and whipped cream, but I do have my flavours to add. I think, and am, as on most occassions, irrevocably sure, that every passing second, let alone every passing hour, adds a measurable modicum of complication to our thinking, making us intrinsically weirder, taking us further away from what the Creator probably intended us to be -- sentient beings of the highest order, gifted with an unimaginably complex mind in order to view things as simply as possible.

I believe we have a terribly bloated up vision of ourselves, perhaps as bottomless creatures (no picturing required here) of infinite possible states. A maze, maybe, the goal of which is hopelessly resigned to unreachable dungeons far beyond our horizons. Alas, though, the only two states I see (I love talking in states, and I failed both my digital electronics minors... so much for talking) as relevant are 'happy' for one, and 'not happy' for another. I am about, in my view, reader, to deliver what is regarded as a very shallow perception of life and things. But then, did I ever give anything even close to a dead rat's tail-tip?

This shall be the final paragraph of this discourse. Which, as I couldn't help rambling on, has surely transformed itself into perhaps the most boring stretch of literature both you and I are ever likely to come across, but hey, to be here you hopefully read the last sentence of my last paragraph. And hence, you are aware that I don't give anything even remotely close to... anyway, you get my point. So, I see I bungled this paragraph up (and my promise too, but I keep doing that). Considering that the end deserves more respect, I move on.

So, yes, I intend to tell you that your next action is all that ever matters. And the outcome of one action can always be deterministically evaluated, speaking in a quasi-jargon that my IITian status begs me to flaunt. That one action gets you to your next, and so on, leaving a linear trail that takes you on just the kind of ride you choose. Make it a rollercoaster, if you will, but pray keep it simple. Till, one day, something comes around that kills you, stopping you dead in your tracks, but only after your simplicity of thought has fulfilled you, taken you closer to both your desire and destiny, and kept you from turning, as The Joker so aptly puts it, stranger.