The Complexity Trap

Mankind has enjoyed tremendous benefits as a result of industrialization and the subsequent advances in infrastructure, science & technology, and antibiotics, surgical technique, and anesthesia.

(Please note: I placed infrastructure first because it was the delivery of clean water and the removal of disease-causing waste, and sanitation in general, that benefited mankind most in terms of health and lifespan—not "healthcare". I placed science and tech next and include in that space things like the advances in nutrition, food production, and refrigeration. And notice I did not even say “healthcare” or “medicine”? In the absence of antibiotics (a medicine, of course), I think all of the positive input from “healthcare” as a practical matter when measured in lifespan evaporates with the distinct exception of the management of pain and vaccines.)

We enjoy far longer lifespans here in the industrialized West than our preindustrial ancestors did, and our lives are far more comfortable. There. I have given the devil his due. Too bad that wasn’t enough for the devil because, in addition, the devil has taken our emotional and physical wellbeing from us. We are incredibly unwell physically and emotionally. And the people who (think they) benefit from our condition do not want us talking about it. Our complex lifestyle and the resultant obesity and anger epidemic has ravaged our physical health and our peace of mind—and the diets, health insurance(!), government programs, psychotherapy treatments, hormone therapies, gym memberships, diet pills and medications, bariatric surgeries, personal trainers, antidepressants/antipsychotics, exercise programs, and every other expensive and specious patch-fix the intelligentsia have slapped on this wound has only increased Complexity and has not brought us (back) to good physical and mental health—and they never will!—because the cause is the universally complex nature and essence of our lives.

Screw “The Matrix” and all of the movie special effects.  The problem is “Complexity”—and it is very real and it really is all around you. This Complexity thing has done a number on us. I don’t need to “fat shame” us. We have already done that by acknowledging how truly ill we are when we coined and used that phrase to defend the indefensible in the first place. We are enraged; walking time bombs of social-justice-warring vitriol. Saaammmokin’ mad do-gooders out for our 15 minutes of virtue signaling fame as we sit exhausted from the Complexity of our lives in front of the TV and listen closely as it tells us what to think while stuffing our face full of high carb take-out alone in our childless homes convinced of our immortality because Complexity made sure we have never had the inconvenience of having to witness and accept death. And it is our belief in our immortality that gives us the room to do all of the mental gymnastics we do that result in a population of enraged, obese, and childless lunatics.

I mean, really! Would any rational person who knew—not feared, but knew—they were going to die at "three score and ten"—and would be irrelevant a decade or even two before that—construct a system where they take on a mountain of debt to stay “in school” until almost 30? Would they commute 2 hours per day to a fluorescent-lit dungeon for 8, 9, 10 or more hours per day to work with people who can’t wait to eviscerate them if they find someone attractive or if they say something that offends someone (regardless of how emotionally unstable and overly sensitive that someone might be)? Would a rational and reasonable person who understood the limited nature of time and their own mortality load up on 30 years worth of debt for houses and cars and nannies (or childcare if you are poor) in exchange for a few idle years in old age?

Of course not! We’ve obviously gone stark, raving mad. Driven insane by (the unholy trinity of) soul-crushing, body-bloating, and mind-numbing Complexity. Worse, we are completely addicted to it. We can't help ourselves, though deep down inside we know we should be making other arrangements. We know that being 50 or 100+ pounds overweight has turned the volume knob on our life down to where we can no longer hear ourselves live, reduced to screen-watching others live and critiquing their conduct. We know we should be marrying and having children when we are young enough to see our offspring through to adulthood and maybe enjoy a grandchild or two. We know we are wasting the beautiful moments of our brief existence in anger and rage, protesting over the unfairness of the world or human nature itself. Deep down we know, even as we deny, that we will soon be as dead as fried frogs legs and the world and the universe will go right on existing as it is. We just haven’t done anything about it yet. But we do know we should get a move on.

The solution to the problems born of Complexity is to remove the Complexity. No "Red Pill". No drama. Many of us use the phrase, “practice (or practicing) Simplicity”. I have used it myself. But of course, that’s just silly. We don’t have to “practice Simplicity”. All we need do is reject/remove Complexity and Simplicity follows. Simplicity is the default; the factory-setting of the human condition, if you will. You were born Simple. Complexity happened to you along the way.

Simplicity is not a vow of poverty. Mankind was given Reason, and the ability to experience joy and pride in our accomplishments. You can still work hard, and achieve fantastic professional, personal, intellectual, or artistic success while living simply. But by doing so you will never be trapped by your own success, wasting the precious moments of your mortal existence doing something that you no longer wish to do but having no other choice precisely because you are trapped where you are because the self-inflicted Complexity of your life has removed all other options. And if you are fortunate enough to live long enough there will come a time in your life where you have a firm grasp on your mortality (some are slower than others on the uptake on this) and will wish to pursue different objectives.

Often we confuse Complexity with freedom because we believe that our stressful and complex lives are the sacrifice we must make for other rewards, many of which we associate with freedom. If that were true why are we waddling about looking like Humpty-Dumpty, enraged, and slurping meds just to cope? Complexity often manifests itself as a form of arrested development. Complexity is life in a rut. It is Simplicity that provides freedom and flexibility, well at least according to me and Ben Franklin, Henry D. Thoreau, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, et al. At the very least I am in good company here.

OK, here is where I must depart. I don't know what your chief purpose in life is. I can’t tell you how to go about rejecting Complexity or what to do next. I know how I handled it (and you could read the book I wrote about my experience in rejecting Complexity, "Prosperous Homesteading"), but I can’t tell you how to go about it. I can tell you that it is a process that goes back and forth and that requires extreme vigilance and diligence to keep Complexity at bay. I can tell you that you can always back up a step if you think you went too far and I can tell you I have never met anyone who went too far (yet).

How about this: Keep removing Complexity from your life until you are fit and trim, medication free, and no longer angry—and for the average American or Western European that is going to be quite enough of a shock because the zeitgeist, for reasons beyond my comprehension, wants you obese, angry, and medicated and has worked tirelessly to get you there. By the way... Happiness is too much to ask for—because, as Søren Kierkegaard said, no matter what you do, you are going to regret it. Fit and trim, medication free, and not angry is easier to accomplish than happiness. It is best to keep our goals modest and reasonable.



 Actually, Kierkegaard said it this way:

Marry, and you will regret it; don’t marry, you will also regret it; marry or don’t marry, you will regret it either way. Laugh at the world’s foolishness, you will regret it; weep over it, you will regret that too; laugh at the world’s foolishness or weep over it, you will regret both. Believe a woman, you will regret it; believe her not, you will also regret it… Hang yourself, you will regret it; do not hang yourself, and you will regret that too; hang yourself or don’t hang yourself, you’ll regret it either way; whether you hang yourself or do not hang yourself, you will regret both. This, gentlemen, is the essence of all philosophy.

Had enough of signaling your virtue online? Feel the need to engage in some real and measurable do-gooderism? Reach out to me at: greg at quuchurch dot org and I will be happy to fill that need.