One way of looking at life is as a series of complex questions, with how we grow in life being defined by the kinds of answers we come up with for these questions. The questions seem to get increasingly complex as we get older, and we yearn for the simple, clear, unambiguous answer.
There are two kinds of simple answers: the first kind, all too prevalent today, is the answer that takes the place of thought. It is the knee-jerk response, the offhand over-generalization, the answer that allows us to clutch our comforting biases closely as we stay glued to our own internal version of Fox News, rather than allow our cherished assumptions to be challenged. Simple answers are easy, seductive and take the place of thought and contemplation. The bell rings, and like the dogs of Pavlov, we salivate, before we even know what we are doing.
The second, rarer kind of answer, is the answer whose simplicity has been discovered by slogging through the complexity to arrive at a simple answer. One must painstakingly examine each aspect of the problem to evaluate whether or not a piece of information is part of the answer, or is irrelevant. To find this kind of answer takes time, effort, and is often painful. In the process, one’s most cherished beliefs can be challenged, and indeed often shattered and rebuilt.
The best example I can think of here of this kind of simplicity is Einstein’s equation E = mc squared. To get to this beautifully simple and elegant answer, Einstein spent years working through hellishly complex math, and the deceptively simple result turned our understanding of the universe on its head. Scientists (particularly in the areas of cosmology and fundamental particle physics) know that elegance and simplicity are the hallmarks of a good scientific theory.
The following example may not be earth-shattering, but I think it illustrates the point, and it certainly resonates with me!
The picture below of Bob Goyetche was taken in Montreal earlier this fall at Podcamp Montreal 2009.
Bob Goyetche
Bob had a new DSLR camera, but had a 50mm non-zoom lens attached, instead of the typical zoom lens. He passed it over to me and some others at the table to try out, and this photo was one of the results. (I don’t remember which of us took this picture). What was interesting was that even though Bob had told me that the camera did not have a zoom lens mounted, when I was handed the camera and pointed it at Bob I instinctively tried to zoom to frame the image.
Zooming to me seems analogous to looking for the simple answer, the mental snapshot. With a non-zooming lens, to frame a picture means using your feet to move around, and actually looking at your subject matter to evaluate alternative ways of framing the image, rather than quickly zooming in without thinking. Even though I went without a zoom lens for a long time when I first got into photography as a teenager back in the 1970’s, I realized that evening in Montreal how having zoom lenses had made my eye lazy in later years.
When I got back to Toronto, I decided to get a 50 mm lens for my DSLR and found one on eBay. What I am starting to do is go out with just the 50 mm lens, to try to get back in the habit of seeing and thinking. I might be out for hours and only come back with an one or two images I like, but that’s OK. Here are a couple of recent images that came about because of using the 50mm lens.
Our two pet rats
No Wading
Whether it’s photography, social media, spiritual matters etc. so many forces in society want to give us (or indeed sell us) the simple answer.
Resist.
