The playwright Clare Boothe Luce once wrote that simplicity is “the height of sophistication.” Unfortunately, any height suggests a climb, and this one offers no exception.
Can you show up to a marathon in sneakers and without any training? Sure, but that’s not the kind of simplicity Luce meant. That one comes in the box, and it’s a plainness we must shake. Simple as in “simpleton” is the starting line, not the destination.
When it first yields to our mounting efforts, by definition, simplicity disappears. What we make may look as if made from one piece, but as any hardworking writer, mom, or manager will know, polished results rarely come easy. They demand study, patience, and sweat.
You’re reading one right now. I’m 32 minutes but only 127 words into this piece — and not for a lack of typing speed. The more we learn, the more beauty we create, but pull back the curtain, and you’ll find toil and turmoil instead of tranquility and ease.
Keep toiling, however, and as the years come and go, every now and then, a little bit of magic will flow from your tongue, mind, or fingertips. For the briefest of moments, some cosmic fairy dust settles, and your actions feel effortless. You’re a river running through the universe, and you know not where you’re going, just that wherever you’ll end up will be exactly right. Voilà! That’s the simplicity we’re looking for.
Not even a lifetime of practice can guarantee magical outcomes every morning. It is, however, our best shot at achieving the kind of simplicity we actually want — the kind that filters our very essence through countless layers of hard-won wisdom in an efficient but inexplicable ritual, with an outcome so bright it can, though rarely perfect, be only our own.
So, 100 years on, I have but one tweak to offer to Luce’s timeless truth: Simplicity can be the height of sophistication — if only we dedicate ourselves to the right kind.