Simplicity and Humility – Governing

Dynamics and Perceptions

A Compilation of Discussion

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Preface
Dear Member,

The following paper is a compilation of the minutes of the discussion. I have made an
attempt to provide the same in an essay format with headings for coherence. This
paper is strictly meant for Private Use of the members only. This paper is not an
academic or research paper and hence you are strictly advised not to quote anything
outside. The objective of the paper is to only provide a summary of what has been
discussed. This means that the topic is still open for discussion, debate and
deliberation in the online forum/ blog.

Every society’s ethical norms, both religious and otherwise, have certain qualities as
indicating goodness or positive attitude. These qualities however, over time, seem to
used by us without really getting into the roots of the meaning or what the quality
really stands for. The Society for Intellectual Thinking (hereinafter referred to as
‘SIT’) identified two such popular qualities namely Simplicity and Humility, two
terms that are being used often as indicative of the goodness in a person. SIT sat down
to discuss the varying perceptions and dynamics in these two aspects. The discussion
covered the following:

• Simplicity – An understanding, perceptions involved

• Humility - An understanding, perceptions involved
• Humility and Simplicity –Are they real/ ideal or just a culmination of actions
indicating their nature? Does it really matter to be simple or humble within or
it is just enough to act to exhibit or affect other’s perception of being simple
and humble?

Date: 14/ 12/ 08

Venue: Gandhi Statue, Marina Beach, Chennai

Participants

1. Srinath Varadarajan
2. Prashanth Krishnaswami
3. S Ramachandran
4. L.VidyaShankar
5. Shreekanth Mahendiran
6. Aparajith Jayaraman
7. Akshay Madhavan
8. Abhinaya Ramadurai
9. Ashwini Ashok Kumar
Regards,
Srinath Varadarajan
Member, SIT

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Simplicity – An Understanding
“Simplicity is subtracting the obvious and adding the meaningful” – John Maeda

The above definition of Simplicity could be considered as a staring point for the
discussion on the varying aspects of this popular term, quality and nature. The two
main aspects of the quote include 1) “obvious” and 2) “meaningful”, which need
analysis.

The first term, “obvious” is easier to analyse meaning that it is indicative of the set
patterns, stereotypic mindsets, “wanna be” attitudes, pre conceived notions, prima
facie opinions, etc. Hence, “obvious” in simple terms, could be assumed to mean
those which your friends tell you, what the society tells, what everyone normally
does, what your parents think, what one tends to think about something prima facie,
etc.

The second term, “meaningful” is tricky and requires a lot more analysis and
understanding of the varying perceptions as it involves a lot more subjectivity. The
subjectivity though is individual, there is a significant influence of the ideas of the
religion/society/group which at times overlaps or even surpasses individual ideas.
Figure 1 below indicates the factors influencing the idea of simplicity and the
manifestations of the idea.

Figure 1: Simplicity – Influencing Factors and Manifestations

Group/ Religion/ Societal

Perception
Individual Perception

Simplicity

LifeStyle Attitude

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Though the idea of simplicity varies from person to person or group to group, one
could generalize the perceptions under two broad heads as follows:

• Lifestyle
• Attitude

Lifestyle
A popular notion or mindset that immediately strikes anybody is that being simple
would mean being “non materialistic”. Non materialism is however different from
renunciation wherein the former is about adding less importance to material objects/
emotions, or lets say, adding more importance to non material ideals like charity,
truth, sharing, etc while the latter would mean forgoing the same. Simplicity under
this idea states that real simplicity is not when one has no opportunity to live with
luxury but when has the opportunity and yet chooses to be without it. The idea though
is popular in the East or rather say India, the perception in the West is lot different
where simplicity is more an existing situation, (meaning a person is of simple means)
over a trait of goodness as is indicated with the culture in the East.

Attitude

Another way of looking at Simplicity would be from the “attitude” perspective, where
one could argue that a person can still live with luxuries but yet be simple! Under this
theory, simplicity is not about the material side of things, it is more about the
approachability, down to earth nature, transparency, non crafty and non hypocritical
nature, being natural and honest, etc.

An interesting aspect of simplicity is in relation to thought. Could we consider

thinking simple as a good trait? The SIT has different views on the same with one
view being that thinking simple would mean it would easily be translatable to action.
My opinion would be that thinking need not be simple, it need to be aggressive and
complex, though action could be simple. Thinking, the more complex and aggressive
it is creates a repository of ideas, dreams and plans that can be applied in appropriate
situations and places at any time! This idea however, requires further deliberation.

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Humility – An Understanding
Unlike simplicity, humility is more to do with attitude over lifestyle. The popular idea
of humility is “not taking credit / accept failure with a gracious heart/ treat success
and failure one and the same”.

Another thought which was discussed and interesting too, is the concept of ego
boundaries and their intensity that define humility.

This is a figure that I have borrowed from a small paper I had written in college on
Credibility. Figure 2 (below) shows the various levels of ego boundaries within a
person. The ego boundaries include four levels in the hierarchical order represented in
the diagram as four circles. Any perception of interference or disturbance with the ego
boundaries could result in tension or friction causing increased worries and
perceptions of problems. This perception could arise due to external influences or
friction between the boundaries themselves. The first boundary is the “ME” where the
individual focuses on oneself, his basic mental and physical needs. The second
boundary is the “Likes and my closely related people” where the person provides
importance to things dear to him. This could include things from favourite clothes to
favourite car to abstract likings like being alone. The second boundary also includes
closely related people such as mother, father, brother, friends and so on. The third
boundary is called “My place, My state and My country” boundary wherein the
individual relates himself to his society and country. The fourth boundary is the
“Humanity and Environment” boundary wherein the individual finally takes a look at
the entire humanity as a whole and creation as such. The assumption for the thought is
that the individual is an average and ordinary individual. The ego boundary could be
rigid or flexible. If rigid the individual is bound to protect his “imaginary wall” even
for a minor discrepancy. If flexible, protection is made only for major discrepancies.
Protection could be in the form of an irritation or anger, a mental tension or a grudge.

The lesser the protection, the more is the flexiblity, the more adaptability and
tolerance.This could indicate that the person could be humble, meaning that he has
less personal interest to attach. Though these could not be concluded to be humble,
yet, one has to agree that they are manifestations of the ideal of humility, the ideal
being that the feeling of ‘I’ is broken , in other words, as unselfish as possible.

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 Figure 2 : Ego Boundaries

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Humility and Simplicity –Are they real/ ideal or just a
culmination of actions indicating their nature? Does it really
matter to be simple or humble within or it is just enough to
act to exhibit or affect other’s perceptions of being simple
and humble?

One view point is that Humility and Simplicity as ideals could be but a combination
of various accepted actions that indicate a person to be humble/ simple. These actions
are just various manifestations with which one could conclude a person to be humble/
simple.

Having such an ideal, a person could act in such a way that people accept him to be
humble/simple. A hot discussion took place as to whether a person could have
contradicting personalities within and yet exhibit humility by actions and yet be
justified, as at the end of the day what matters is the acceptance by the world to the
person being humble/ simple or not.

Another viewpoint is that Humility or Simplicity are more than just actions, they also
indicate intentions and thought process of a personality (for instance, unselfish
attitude towards people, etc). Actions will take place automatically in some form or
the other (may not be the accepted ones too) with the intensity of the ideal. These
actions over a period of time mature into accepted actions as the intensity of the ideal
would drive people to adopt.

In my opinion, regardless of the viewpoint, there needs to be a synergy between what

we think and are and what we do. Though it could matter to the world only how we
showcase ourselves, as we are responsible for our own self and personality, I think it
is essential to bring a synergy and reduce the gap as much as we can. One can have
contradicting characters and still survive but when thought and action go on synergy,
the result is more powerful as actions away from the set patterns more likely to get
accepted as they exhibit the intentions as revealed by the attitude and personality.

This again is highly debatable!

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What did we conclude?
To conclude, Simplicity and Humility could mean more than just lifestyle and popular
conceived patterns. Being highly relative and subjective, these two terms vary from
person to person. However, due to a societal standard of what is simple and humble,
we tend to associate certain actions and behaviour to being simple and humble.

The two learnings out of the discussion would be

1) Whatever be the perceptions or belief, it is essential that we understand that
we cannot hold stereotypes and pre conceived notions about humility/
simplicity, be more adaptive than getting judgmental.
2) It is essential that we follow what we preach, and do what we think and do
vice versa. In that context, whatever be the attitude or perception, it is ideal
that we live what we believe to be good. Hence, if we feel that humility/
simplicity is good, irrespective of what we mean by that, we have to live it and
synchronise thought with action and action with thought.

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