How to love complexity
Reflecting on how my thinking has changed over the past 7 years
I've been tracking this faint scent.
The scent is of complexity: what it looks like, how it works, and why I keep coming back to it. Complexity has eluded me, like a vague figure in the corner of your eye that disappears the second you direct your focus on it. I know it exists in the fabric of our cities. I am certain it governs our lives in so many ways. Yet, the way we live day by day, moment to moment, we prefer to think that our decisions exist in a vacuum, detached from a greater messier whole. It’s so much easier that way…
…and also, a necessary thing that we do this. We suppress complexity whenever we can, because it is cognitively tiring to pay attention to the complexity of every decision and action we make. Most of us would become paralyzed just mapping out the possibilities, and that’s before considering which route to pick. As you may have figured already, this modus operandi is not a useful way of functioning in our fast-paced world.
Heck, I didn’t know it at the time, but when I made the resolution to not pursue a career directly related to my studies in urban planning, I too was opting for the easy way out. Though I strongly felt something fundamental was missing from my education and from the professional practice, I just didn’t have the wherewithal to get to the bottom of my discontentment.
Since my decision, I’ve tried re-engaging with urban planning several times since then. Except, on my own terms.
7 years ago I was going through one such re-engagement episode. This coincided with the fact that I was about to turn 30. I decided to start writing notes on my computer as a form of outlet. One such written artefact was titled “20150328 How to love complexity”.
When I was setting up my current note-taking environment (I use Obsidian, in case you were wondering), this was one of the few notes I imported from my old notes. The fascinating thing is, I can’t even imagine who I used to be when I wrote this raw, unedited stream of consciousness piece.
One thing you should know about me: I come from a Fine Arts background. In hindsight, I see this piece as a sense-making exercise leaning heavily on my Arts part of the brain. I was trying to use my lived experience to cobble together words and sentences to describe what complexity felt like for me, a human living in an urban environment. Also, the piece isn’t really a “how to…” as much as it was a writing prompt and question to me. “How do I embrace complexity, despite its elusiveness?” would have been more precise. Despite the inaccuracy, there is something beautifully naive about the title that, again, is a wonderful throwback to younger-me wrestling with this timeless idea.
And even though I abandoned ship on the attempt above (the piece was never completed), I continued to turn the question around like a river stone in my hand.
My approach to complexity is different today. And maybe I’ll write a bit about that in the next newsletter.
🐦 Tweet: Tech solving problems
From lab-grown meat to autonomous cars with Peloton bikes installed in them, there’s no shortage of “solutionism” coming from the tech sector. When you apply a complexity lens to new inventions, many side effects and unintended consequences reveal themselves, making the solution much less attractive than before.
A thought: while we have engineers do extensive “Environmental Assessments” to analyze the impacts of a new infrastructure on the environment, why don’t we do “Societal Assessments” on new technologies?
Actually, some of us do. The Amish have a very interesting technology adoption vetting protocol. Kevin Kelly speaks about this in a podcast interview with David Perell. I recommend the whole episode if you have time, or jump to 31:25 for the actual part where they talk about this. I also wrote a big piece on Kevin Kelly and his fascinating obsession with curation, which seems to be a sense-making process for him.
🐦 Not my tweet: Bus operator breaks down Shang-Chi bus scene
I haven’t watched Shang-Chi🐉 yet but was thoroughly impressed by the this gem of a thread. You learn so much about what it’s like being in the mind of a bus driver in San Francisco. Gotta love people who carry their professional jobs lightly.
Cutting this week’s newsletter a bit short because of a sprained ankle that happened during rock climbing over the weekend. It turns out that sitting at a computer for long periods of time make the swelling much worse! Who woulda thunk.
Thanks for reading! If you liked it, do give it a ❤️
Until next week,
stay safe and stay curious.
— F
An excellent, well-written piece as usual! Sorry to hear about your sprained ankle. Ice and rest your foot at an elevated level. Hope it gets better soon. Take care!