Apparently each year there is a competition, in which engineers compete to see who can create the most complicated machine to do the most simple of tasks.
This year the winner was a group of engineering students who found a way to include 125 steps in the process of changing the batteries in a flashlight. I have got to admit that I would have liked to see that one.
Yahoo! News - Students Use 125 Steps to Change Batteries
Alright, these students are to complimented. It takes a tremendous amount of creativity to put that many steps into such a simple process. But on the other hand, human beings seem to thrive on the concept of complication.
Each and every day we look at situations and we see the simple solution; we instinctively see exactly how we should approach something and exactly where we will end up if we follow the straight and simple path. Then our brains get involved and we find ourselves not believing that anything could be that simple.
We over-analyze...we find the most complicated path to follow, we proceed in that twisted and backasswards manner and then we wonder why it is taking us so damn long to get where we want to be.
That being said, anyone who has seen my recent writings at Flights of the Spirit will understand why I just sat here laughing for a bit after reading this story. I have been having some serious issues with this whole concept lately. I think and think and then think some more and then when I know I have a solution or really, really, really complicated direction...I think again. By the time I finish thinking I have almost lost sight of where I wanted to get in the first place.
Then there are those times when I seem to abandon all thought processes and head right into something like a bull in a china shop. Most times this happens when I have found myself totally and completely lost in my own thought processes. Through over-complicated thinking I have created a maze and since I can't seem to find my through it...I start barreling down the damn maze, completely obliterating anything in my way.
Oh well...the human race has evolved...but sometimes I think there are areas in which we have gone backwards. We have the capacity for thought and for free will...sometimes however we forget that the best use of these gifts is to exercise free will and let go of thought...then we can follow that simple and straighforward solution...the one that is often from the heart.
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