From Paul Graham:
When you’re forced to be simple, you’re forced to face the real problem. When you can’t deliver ornament, you have to deliver substance.
4 thoughts on “Forced to be simple”
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From Paul Graham:
When you’re forced to be simple, you’re forced to face the real problem. When you can’t deliver ornament, you have to deliver substance.
Comments are closed.
I think ‘complex’ can be entrenched by regulatory capture when simple would be better. That’s frustrating.
this is why a 10-minute elevator pitch can be more rewarding to develop than a 90-minute presentation. With all the bullshit stripped away, you are forced to contend with the crux: why should anyone care what I’m doing?
I’m a left-handed person that originally learned guitar right-handed. About 25 years ago I broke one of the fingers on my left hand and had a pin put in it. After the operation I didn’t have enough strength to press a string down to the fretboard, but I could hold a pick with my left hand – I decided this was my chance to learn to play left-handed. I could only play simple single note lines at first so was forced to play very simply.
I could only play a few notes, so I had to pick the good ones – this dramatically improved my phrasing, even after the cast came off and the pin came out and I could play right-handed again.
For me, writing haiku has always been a valuable exercise in creativity and expression. The demand for formal simplicity is probably why.