Yes, its a simple quote, but I have spent many years debating with myself to see wether I agree with it or not:
“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated”
Do you agree or disagree with it?
I disagree with your choice of forums.
Moved from GQ to IMHO, where opinion polls are run.
samclem GQ moderator
Agree.
I guess the key word is insist. Do we insist that Calculus be complicated? No, we complicate things in order to better understand and control them.
Well, depends on how you define “life” I guess. And “simple.”
The process of respiration, growth, reproduction and death is pretty simple. Ameobas are pretty good at it. Squirrels seem to do pretty well. Hedgehogs have got it down pat.
But add in intelligence, interpersonal relationships, governments, free will, self-doubt, tribal warfare, medicine, religion and aged cheeses and things get messy.
The things that make us human make us “not simple”, I think. I wouldn’t want to give moat of them up, though. (Well, maybe tribal warfare. That’d be a nice one to lose.)
In many ways I think it’s the opposite. Life is absurdly complicated, and we try to simplify things. Take for example this whole planet debate. When the mighty Yahweh created the cosmos he clearly didn’t have a checklist in mind for the types of objects the universe needed. We’re just given a random mess of things, and we attempt to categorize it in hopes of making it easier to study. In reality unfortunately, nature doesn’t always conform to our categorizations.
It’s like, when we say something is “big”, it’s usually obvious that it’s big, as opposed to small, but when you have objects closer and closer in size, where is the line drawn? When exactly does a small object become big?
When it’s bigger then something smaller of course.
Disagree.
The goals of everyone in life are real simple: Get food, make cool stuff, have fun, find someone you love, and make babies. The problem being those other 5 billion fuckers who won’t just let you do that.
Everyone’s trying to accomplish the same thing, but we all go about it in a different way and have to get what we want by dealing with all those people (who again, each have their own way of operating.) That creates an ever-changing society and, of course, an infinite number of things that could happen at any given point in time.
So if at any given moment Fidel Castro could suddenly send over an army to capture Florida, a playboy bunny could jump out of your birthday cake and fall in love with you, or the cure for cancer was found–it’s rather hard to say that life is simple. You have to keep on your feet and watch what all is happening and what looks like it’s going to probably going to go bad, or probably going to turn out well, and figure out how to deal with or encourage those (and get the other 5 billion fuckers to go along with that.)
I disagree but will add a little bit.
Life is complicated but a whole lot of people insist on making it more complicated than it already is.
Slee
Why do you have to make everything so complicated?
Good point. I wonder how much of our life is complicated simply because of language. Not only because all those things I listed wouldn’t be possible without language, but more fundamentally than that. I mean, we have all these sounds and symbols on a computer screen that ostensibly mean something specific, but we have to spend so much time interpreting, misinterpreting and clarifying our terms before we can figure out whether or not we can come to an agreement on anything. It’s exhausting!
“Life is simple”.
“Well, that depends on what your definition of “life” is. And what “is” is. And what “simple” is.” 
Agree.
Life is simple, at least for Americans. You get up. You work. You go to bed. Who can’t manage that?
If you want to dwell on the state of the planet, or tribal warfare, or the government, or the quantity and quality of your possessions, that’s *your *problem. Not “life’s”.
Most everyone I know who has a complicated existence is completely responsible for it.
NO, I think life is very complicated, but we can make it simple.
Life certainly isn’t always simple, but people complicate their lives immensely by trying to rationalize doing things they know they shouldn’t. They convince themselves that a situation is “complicated”, because acknowledging how simple it actually is would force them to do the obviously correct thing.
But see, to me that is exactly what the quote is talking about. Who really cares whether or not Pluto is a “planet”? Why deal with the complication of having an argument about what to call it?
“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated”
But I think we do that by choice. You could probably rephrase it as:
“Life is really simple and boring, but we insist on making it complicated and interesting.”
Anyone can lead a simple life if they choose. Get a one bedroom apartment next to your job, eat beans and rice, go home and sleep on the floor. No vacations, no car, no tv, no books, no friends or family, no phone, no computer, etc. Just exsist.
Simple but boring.
Add some spice to your life with possesions, experiences, hobbys, relationships, etc. and it can get complicated. Fun, interesting, and complicated.
You can try to make a simple life for yourself BUT things can happen to fuck it up and complicate it.
Disagree. Strongly. Life is complicated. In everyone, it’s a web of virtual realities, many competing with one another. We tell ourselves stories, then we believe our stories. Other people tell us stories, and we believe them as well. The stories keep bashing into one another. We are constantly bouncing around among competing influences.
Life gets more complicated when you get married. When you have children, and the little buggers hit puberty, it goes off the charts. Junior’s in the garage smoking weed, there are rubbers in his room, he’s off tagging at 3 am, and he’s flunking all his classes. What are you going to do now??
The quote was “Life is simple, but we insist on making it complicated”.
From what you wrote, it actually sounds like you meant “agree”, not “disagree”.
No. I do not insist on making it complicated. It happens. It happens because life is complicated.
Go out and try to make your life simple. Insist that it be simple. Report back in ten years how that worked out for you.
one way of looking at this quote would be:All these things, wether it be examining particles, or examining atoms, and learning about how the universe works, all these things, by themleves are not really complicated they just are what they are. But we, through observation and anlysis try to understand the things around us, thus in this sense, we do complicate our lives by trying to understand these things.