The Brilliance of Simplicity


Edwin Tse - Mayya

PHOTO | EDWIN TSE♡ HIS WORK

Simplicity is not simple in the beginning. We come to it at the end, when experience, knowledge, and revelation simplifies life by removing the confusion. 

I used to think that inner growth would somehow enlarge me and create something new in me. But it seems to do the opposite. Every time I learn something, rather than something getting added, something gets taken away.

Learning does not pile on top of what we are but rather removes the blinders that distort our perception of how we understand things. Our eyes open, we see clearer, and as we gain understanding the clutter of confusion drops away. Complicated things make sense. The world becomes comprehensible, we begin to see the big picture and the smaller issues dissolve.

Knowledge and experience don’t add a load but relieve us from the burden of incomprehension. Like when a sculpture gets chiseled from a mass of marble, it loses a lot of clutter to become something specific and distinguishable. That is the essence of gaining simplicity, we lose bits of confusion, ignorance, illusion, and become more specifically ourselves.

In the end, simplicity is a way of thinking which is less distorted. More elegant. Distinct.