Anyone can make things bigger and more complex...

[Elnaz_b]

Could you please evaluate?
Have I supported my position successfully?

"Anyone can make things bigger and more complex. What requires real effort and courage is to move in the opposite direction—in other words, to make things as simple as possible."

According to the statement it takes real effort and courage to simplify things that can easily be regarded as difficult and complex. I strongly agree. In my observation, the history of human endeavor attests to the sole objective of human species to simplify the world in order to make it understandable and thereby controllable. We even have simplified things that we cannot understand, through religion and supernatural. This same trend exists in our personal pursuits toward success.

Throughout the history of our existence and in every area of human endeavor the sole direction of human effort was toward simplification. Human species always wanted to understand things that first appeared irreducibly convoluted and inscrutable. We always wanted to understand in order to take control and exploit the resources of the world to our best benefit. For human being so frail and incapable, understanding a planet trillions of times bigger than himself was an impossible goal. Yet, we managed, though it took centuries, to discover that the earth was a sphere. It took centuries for us to reduce the force of geomagnetism into a simple formula of gravity. Similarly, after decades of pertinacious pursuit, we simplified the world into its constituents: molecules and atoms, and further classified all atoms into Periodic Chart. Every single aspect of human knowledge is acquired by simplification as the greatest physicist, Albert Einstein, aptly puts it: “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.” Or, consider the area of medical diagnosis. A physician is now capable of diagnosing and curing many illnesses only because many before him have explained those diseases by a few recognizable symptoms and causes for each. Yet, human body is indeed more complicated than any complexity and medical diagnosis, in no way, implies that we understand that complexity. However, today, we are capable of doing many things and have high standard of living only because we have tried hard for centuries to simplify what we saw at first glance to be substantially unfathomable.

Even when we could not tangibly identify many things we did not simply give up, but still formulated the immeasurable. Philosophy, theology, religion, and even superstition more than anything else epitomize humanistic desire to make things understandable. We could not understand how our vast world with its massive details and tremendous order has emerged, how it is going to end, how we first appeared, or how is the life after death. Yes, it is easy to say we cannot understand what is far beyond ourselves and stay in darkness. Yet, the very nature of humankind craves for the power of knowing. Consequently, we set rules which are generally accepted and even categorized as holy since the first generations of humans. We rationalized we have an infinitely potent creator, a judgment day for separating innocent from guilty, a life after death, and so forth. In sum, we take the extra effort to explain everything and make them simpler because of our very innate desire to understand and take control.

In addition, what requires effort and courage in our personal lives is our goal to succeed; and success does not come out unless we try to move forward in a step-by-step, doable manner. In today’s highly competitive society and sophisticated jobs, one would need knowledge, skill, and experience to be able to stand on his own feet. Hence, one would need years of education, most probably specialized education, experience, and work to become actually an independent, constructive member of the society. Although, it is easily seen as exhaustive and even tedious effort to follow just a common pursuit of life, it is doable for those who employ huge amounts of persistency, courage, and attempt to attain life time success.

In conclusion, it is easy to sit back regarding things as difficult and unreachable. But, in so doing we wouldn’t be humans, the supreme of species in this world; instead we would still live in caves, kill our food with bare hands, and leave out our dead. Yet, we achieved our current standard of living, explored the world beyond our earth, and even formulated the immeasurable by trying to make things as simple as to be understandable to human mind and capacity.

[Gravy924]

I think it is an extremely well written essay, but I think it is a bit off topic.

To me, your essay more talks about the human tendency to simplify things that we find complicated, and the amount of effort we put into doing that.

However, the statement that you agree with says that it is harder and more courageous to make things simple than it is to make things bigger and more complex.

Personally, I would have a really hard time arguing this essay. You might want to use examples from mathematics, like it was harder for Euclid to simplify geometry to a set of universal axioms then it is to use those axioms to prove something more complex, because the groundwork is already laid out.

Overall though, this is a really really well written essay, from what I have read I think that if you used the same prose but were more on topic you would have to get a really high score.

Take that with a grain of salt though, because what do I know? =)