Complexities

Ever wondered why we create complexities for ourselves? Is it our nature like Goulish tried to tell us? All these questions could pop up into anyone’s head once he/ she really put their heads into it. Upon taking just a glance at our lives we could manage to understand that we make things more complex than they have to. Confucius once said, “Life is simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” This quote ostensibly covers the whole idea of this essay. We as humans have had rough time through our evolution; we have gone through much as a race that it has affected us to our core. Goulish explains it in his essay that it is our nature to complicate things. “Irreducible complexity seems to characterize the late twentieth century itself” (Goulish 557). Goulish seems to have a pretty good idea of what complexities are and how this trait of human beings has been us for as long as we can remember. Goulish does not hesitate to explain to his readers that making things complex is our nature. Goulish hits this spot right from the beginning of his essay, “Each time we experience a work of performance, we start over almost from nothing” (Goulish 557). Why does he say that? Goulish tells us that when we experience an act of performance we tend to look at it from the fresh eye instead of using our previous encounters in similar situations. He tells his readers that, come what may, we will look at things with the thought in our head that we have never encountered it before. Goulish mentions it multiple places in the essay that we are critics but “Why do we engage a critical mind?” Throughout the whole essay he has one purpose, “To try and explain to his readers why we engage a critical mind.” He does not fail to mention that this side of humans is not just limited to an act of performance but all endeavors of human life. It is applicable to everything that we do, whether it is related to sciences or humanities. He mentions that even though we tend to look at things like never before, we do have some basic ideas about everything. He mentions this idea very vividly, “As a result, each field structures itself by propagating its own specialized vocabulary so that its practitioners might share some basic concepts” (Goulish 557). No matter what the field, we have some basic concepts pre-stored in our heads, those concepts help us understand the performances- it is important to know that performance is not just limited to an act- but we do form our own opinions regardless of those ideas. Goulish goes on to answer his own question, “Why do we critique.?” His answer to this question is a lot simpler than one would think. He tells us that the reasons why we criticize the work are to cause a change and secondly to understand how to understand. We inquire, scrutinize, and make things complicated because we need to cause a change and understand, but to cause a change in what? Goulish does not fail to answer this question. “Perhaps they [critics] attempt to change the future by effecting audience perceptions” (Goulish 558). We could apply the same concept to our idea- why do we make things complex? We make things complicated because we want to affect our and other people’s perceptions. We want to understand ourselves but at the same time try and explain it to other people. We make things harder than they have to be because of who we are. If other people change their ideas or perceptions because they were inspired by us, is also fine with us. What they do from what we have conceived is up to them, we did our duty. Another thought that you might come to think of could be, “Who is capable of criticizing and making things complex.” Everyone is a born critical, everyone makes things complex, we all have our experiences and training throughout our lives to help us do that. Goulish mentions it in his essay, “Because if we have been trained at all, we have probably been trained to spot the negatives” (Goulish 559). Is just one essay enough for us to understand our idea? We humans are never satisfied with one thing so we keep looking for other things and sources to verify our original thought. So, for all of those out there who are suspicious, let’s take a look at our idea from another point of view. Do we make things complex because of our past? Everyone has his or her own individualized experiences that cause us to reach our own conclusions. These are the questions that Goulish would say engage a critical mind. Let us look at it from another writer’s perspective. To bring Goulish’s idea into Ann Zwinger’s “A Desert World” would be very beneficial here. At one point Zwinger mentions our lack of ability to adapt to our surroundings. She envies creatures because they easily adapt themselves to their surroundings, even if they are unfamiliar. She writes, “Insights into this beautifully attuned world to which I am not adapted make…soon-to-be-available food” (Zwinger 415). At this point in her essay she tries to tell her readers that we humans could learn a thing or two from the creatures and from their ability to change. But like Goulish asked us to do, “reach our conclusions.” We could say that one way for us to adapt is to criticize and make things complex. Make them as complicated as possible so that we know everything about the subject. To know everything about something is always a good feeling and helps us feel comfortable. Zwinger brings the past into her essay. She basically asked the question, “Why do we make things complex when our past was so astonishing with simplicity?” She mentions in one place in her essay, “During good growing years, when Indian populations were small, archaic life was good, for there was enough to eat” (Zwinger 415). Her thought are pretty much obvious from this sentence. Why make things complex or complicated when our past was calm and peaceful with simplicity? I think to answer Zwinger’s question we have to bring in Goulish to our defense, “Faced with the impossibility of the task of knowing everything, we sometimes feel the desire to reject intellectuality altogether in favor of passionate expression” (Goulish 557). Goulish mentions that we have the urgent need to know everything, the task and desire to know everything is what drives us to the discourse of complexity. Goulish mentions this in his essay, “And yet even these roads, if sincerely followed lead back to the discourse of complexity” (Goulish 557). To know everything is an impossible task but we still strive and attain all the knowledge. We, as humans, are very curious. We are packed up with amazement and allurement. The hunger to know everything is what changed our simple and peaceful past into our present. We make criticize things and make them complex so that we understand them and that way we could our own discoveries. We have the survival instinct that is probably high and severe than any other species. When we come into trouble and know that we do not have a way around a hardship, we come up with ideas and invent things. Zwinger mentions this in her essay, “But one of these periods of stress came innovation, invention, and change” (Zwinger 415). Could that be the reason why we make things complex? Do we do it so that we can make our lives better? But have we really? Should we go back to making things simpler so that our lives are easy? No matter what your answers are to the questions, there is nothing you can do about it. It is our nature to make things complex for various reasons, residing from making us comfortable and adaptable to making our lives easier. What we fail to realize is that we can never, no matter how hard we try, change our nature. No matter how much we know about something or someone, we will not be convinced until we reach our own conclusions. Those conclusions could have reason varying from making feel comfortable to surviving. In simple words our motto should be, “Reach your own conclusion,” think Goulish would be very happy with us.

Work Cited 1) Zwinger, Ann. “A desert world” 415-416. Print 2) Goulish, Mathew. “Criticism” 557-560. Print