Keep it Simple

Complication

Write a new post in response to today’s one-word prompt.

*********************

This word is from the Latin complicare, to fold together. 

The first thing that comes to mind is Danish pastry.  I used to make it from scratch, and it required a process of incorporating lots of butter into sweet dough, chilling, rolling, folding, rolling, etc. until the specified number of layers had been created.

It smelled like heaven while it was baking. It tasted like ambrosia, and it didn’t ever last very long. I’ve had good danish from bakeries, but there’s nothing like homemade.

All those layers you see folded together and replete with butter makes melt-in-your-mouth goodness.  And yes, it’s complicated to make, but not really difficult. You just need patience.

I’ve noticed in the last couple of years that when someone is asked a question they may not really want to answer, they’ll dodge it by saying, “It’s complicated.”  And sometimes it really is.  Layers of events, emotions, details, all folded together to create a complicated situation. Sometimes, the person who is asking really has no business knowing the answer. “It’s complicated”  works quite well in that case.

Complications do arise in life.  I’m reading a book right now about the current political atmosphere here in America. Layers upon layers of deceit, maneuvering, misleading, and misuse of power.  Will we ever know the real truth of all the accusations and counter-accusations?  Probably not.  One thing our politicians are quite adept at doing these days is dodging the simple truth. Then you toss in the added complication of a news media that is no longer simply reporting.  It is interpreting, explaining to meet their own agenda, assuming that we the people are too ignorant or just plain stupid to see the obfuscation of which the press is guilty.

Even in my counseling office, I have often asked a question–a simple, clear question–that elicits a response that avoids the question completely. Sometimes I will stop the person and say, “A simple YES or NO is really all I need at this point.”  They don’t like that.  I will usually get, “Well, yes, BUT yadayadayada.” While I am fully aware that there are complications, I do try to get to a starting point that is clear and without layers folded all around it.  People often are confused, puzzled, even angry when I ask for a simple, uncomplicated yes or no. 

Maybe I should just stick with making pastry.

 

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/complication/

Advertisement