Less is More

I recently attended a live music show named- The Burmans. Some interesting anecdotes shared by the compere made some enlightening revelations about music creation, especially by yesteryear music directors. Songs back then mostly formed an integral part of the overall storyline. A lot of thought and consideration would go in understanding the situation, the characters and the actors. Songs thus created won't just entertain the audience but would also successfully fulfil the onus of taking the storyline ahead in a melodious way. It was essential for music directors to create music that would let the listener imagine how the song would look on screen. Music would speak for itself, hence the choice of instruments, vocal formats formed an essential part of expression.

Consider the song- "Waqt Ne Kiya kya haseen sitam"- Geeta Dutt's beautiful voice and SD Burman's melodious tune substantiates major portion of this song. SD used minimal instruments to support the song. Minimal, but just the right ones. Anything more would only create noise.

Hrishikesh Mukherjee was an amazing storyteller in the 1970s. Consider the song - "Ab to hai tumse, har khushi apni", composed by SD Burman from the movie named "Abhimaan", directed by Hrishi da. Not just a melodious tune, the lyrics beautifully express Jaya's feelings, while the visuals portray the agony of Amitabh. All but in 3 minutes with minimal settings, the stage is set for the next chapter of the story where Amitabh's jealousy begins to deteriorate his married life. 

Such expressions use minimalistic approach in art that advocates stripping unnecessities while focusing on essentials. This approach, dubbed as "Less is More" is effective in every form of expression, be it art, professional presentations, writing or storytelling. By delivering the message in less time, using minimal resources, it leaves the canvas available for more fruitful creation. 

It is said that brevity is the soul of wit. So it must be of effective narration as well. I find Ted Talks to be an epitome of how typical presentations must be. Succinct, yet succulent. The more substance one includes in lesser, thoughtfully chosen words, allows more value to be delivered in lesser time, making the expression effective and captivating. 

For same reasons, web series these days gather more audience than traditional TV soaps. Apart from the flexibility the former offers to view from anywhere and anytime, the content density over time keeps the audience glued to the devices.

At work, we find a lot of professional PowerPoint presentations that are noisy. Details crammed into a single slide hardly allow the audience to consume what is offered. Same goes with performance dashboards where cluttered graphs and numbers that create more confusion than clarity. 

Paintings with the right use of colours in limited proportions appear more beautiful. Homes with subtle interiors that allow more light and space seem to be more soothing and inviting.

Expressing yourself effectively, through minimal and simple words, is an art worth embodying in today's professional world.

Our choices of social health should also be based on a "Less is More" approach. As a generation whose social life primarily dwells on devices, we feed ourselves with more knowledge than what we can digest. Limited but useful knowledge distillates into mindfulness and wisdom. Excess of anything creates chaos and noise. Overuse of social media seeps in the Narcissistic Personality Disorder, urging us to expose more of ourselves to gather our happiness in the form of likes, shares and comments. The dopamine rush thus experienced is equated to that experienced through narcotics addiction. More begets even more leading to suffocation. We gradually forget to make ourselves happy with smaller pleasures and overfill our minds with content, not letting it wander freely to flourish creativity. 

No wonder the need for Digital Detoxification is growing fast. Until that becomes a habit, it calls for explicit self-restraint to suppress the urge to show off what you have. It's the brake you apply on your own selves when replying to social media messages and binge watching. Less, should be more.

"Less is More" is an attitude where we naturally gravitate towards what is necessary. It does not mean sacrificing necessities or being too frugal on resources. It rather means using only what is essential to create value and discard the rest. Anything less than what is just enough would make it deficient, while anything more would be excess.

This attitude makes you realize that it's not worth wasting your time and energy (essentially the MOST important resources) on situations where brevity can allow time for other important things that matter. It's time to declutter and shed the excess, and thus realize that less, should actually be more.

Complicated Simplicity

It’s not simple to be simple. More often than not we observe complex means being employed to address simple issues. Be it solving a problem or explaining a concept, use of complex methods and jargons is preferred where simplicity can work wonders.

Recently I was tasked to help a team who wanted a Machine Learning model to prescribe the optimal liquid flow that fills maximum tankers in minimum time. Upon examining, it wasn’t hard to conclude that a bit of math could give the right figure. “We need some AI in our system to showcase our capabilities on advanced offerings” was the justification. It was like trying to be 80% sure that 2 + 2 equals some value between 3.96 and 4.04, where simple math could provide a 100% definite answer; A clear pursuit of complexities over simplicity.

We Indians too find complex explanations and use of heavy jargons a sine-quo-non to impress others (Sorry, I can’t help being an Indian myself J). This probably stems from the colonial conditioning ingrained in us over ages. Britons prefer passive tones, while Americans don’t. Signboards like “Entry Prohibited” simplify into “Do not Enter” in America. Active voiced Americans prefer a simple direct tone and argue that incorrigible Britons unnecessarily complicate spellings by adding a “u” in words like “color”.

Psychological observations about what makes people take the longer route might point to reasons below.

Urge to stand out sounding smarter:
We admire Shashi Tharoor for his unique choice of words, doesn’t matter if we don’t understand half of those. Be it through his famous speech in London, Ted Talks he has delivered or the interviews he has given, he never missed impressing us with his adorable knowledge and diction. Strong vocabulary up his sleeves to feed his complex speeches, he does stand out smarter among his khadi clad colleagues.

Half knowledge:
It is said that you haven’t understood a thing thoroughly, unless you can explain it in a way a 6 years old could understand. It’s like Amir Khan explaining the meaning of a machine in the movie “3 Idiots”; Use of simple terms that explain the concept thoroughly but fail to impress due to lack of engineering complexity.
At times people tend to lean on complex explanations to cover up their deficiencies about the subject of matter.

If you can’t convince them, better confuse them:
Just as US President Harry Truman quoted this maxim to describe his political opponents’ tactics, at times complex means come handy in intentionally confusing others when convincing is not possible.

Guilt:
We grow up learning that success always follows hard work. We feel success is sweeter when it’s achieved the harder way. Wise men advocate treading the “right” way, rather than the “hard” way. At times the “right” way is actually the simpler, or it may be sheer luck that makes us succeed. But most of the times, success remains unacknowledged unless there is sweat on the brow.

Fear of Missing Out:
FOMO as it is popularly called is a psychological state of mind, aggravated by the overuse of social media. We have let technology invade our lives deeper than expected. Bogged down by the problem of plenty we never settle on the urge to have more. We fail to entertain ourselves with simple means that made us happy just about 15 years ago.

Neuroplasticity:
Humans like challenges. Solving complex puzzles reverses cognitive aging. Over a period, the adrenaline release of getting over complexities causes neuroplasticity to make complex neural mappings. Brain tends to automatically follow the complex path as a response to every problem. Simple way-outs become rare.

We find multiple ways to complicate our lives. We feel like talking, but we hesitate to call. If we need anything, isn’t it easy enough to ask? A plain explanation can settle misunderstandings. When guilt haunts us, we can always apologise. It’s simpler than we think.

Similar ways people tend to over complicate financial investments. Investing need not be that complicated. We witness our previous generation, comfortably retired on simple but disciplined investing over years in limited investment options available in the past. While newer options are necessary to cover the growing cost of living, experts suggest a simple disciplined approach over long term does play out even today. However, our incorrigible self refutes to settle for simplicity.

At office, crisp, distilled explanations in simple terms that the audience understands makes for a good presentation. Jargon filled overcomplicated rhetoric is sure to bore the audience, also make them uncomfortable and hesitant in asking questions.

It’s time we embrace simplicity again. Simplifying complexities and letting simple stay simple never seemed more important. Nothing explains life better than watching a child play on her own, pure emotions derived from simple means. 

American researcher Brene Brown once quoted – “It takes courage to say yes to rest and play in a culture where exhaustion is seen as a status symbol”. We probably need to infer these golden words in the context of simplicity. All it takes, is to learn to KISS – Keep It Simple, Stupid J.