Ah, simplicity! Possibly the most strived for thing in my life. Yet sometimes so elusive. Have you ever wondered if there's such a thing as "too simple"? I mean, in a world where choice is abundant with each choice having something "newer" or "better" than the last choice. But is it really "newer" or "better"? Let me paint a few pictures for you:
Picture 1: As you know I am in the throes of planning my wedding. And what is more important in a wedding than the wedding cake? (I know, the dress is most important, but go with me on this...the cake works for the example and I'm trying to keep it simple...) So when I went to discuss the kind of cake I wanted with the cake decorator, I think she was a little flabbergasted that I did not want what a lot of other brides want. For this example, I will use the wedding cake of a friend of mine, I'll call her Princess Puppy Lover (or PPL for short). Now, at PPL's wedding, her cake was beautiful...until it was on my plate. I could hardly distinguish any smidgen of "cake" hiding within all the layers of different flavored ganache. Don't get me wrong, I like ganache as much as the next person, but when I'm eating cake, I expect to taste cake. I don't want to have to hunt and peck for a little crumbly of cake that just happened to fall on my plate among my ganache and fondant (which is a horrible combination, especially when there are multiple competing flavors of ganache in said "cake"). Now, keeping this in mind when I went to the cake decorator, I was very specific. If I'm not mistaken, I think the words out of my mouth were, "I want it to taste like cake. I don't want fruity, nutty, jelly, whatever all up in my cake. I want it to taste like cake." And that's the way I think it should be. Cake should taste like cake. It shouldn't have all that other crap in there that makes it taste not like cake.
Picture 2: For this Ripple of One (henceforth known as ROO) video I really wanted to keep it simple. Focus on one idea and keep it. I kept trying to make hope or future or some other "uplifting" word be the focus of my video. But it just wasn't working for me. Finally, after getting the video from the interview with Larisha, I decided to just sync up the audio with the video and see if something jumped out at me. Otherwise, I had resigned myself to just putting some pretty music, a little talking, some pictures of Larisha and her kids, and the ROO logo at the end and call it a day. But something did jump out at me, as it jumped out at everyone else in class -- the part about statistics. Larisha didn't want to be a statistic. That's it! That's what I'm basing my video on - statistics! But not in the boring math kind of way. More in an overwhelming, faceless kind of way. And though I think the video looks a little blasé and, well, simple, I know there are at least 10+ hours that are going in to making this video. I may be slightly OCD (in an "Oh for the Sake of All that is Good and Pure in this World" kind of way) and that's why I think it will take me a while, but the idea behind it is simple - statistically speaking.
Picture 3: I like to cook. Well, that's an understatement -- Food Network is my favorite show and, aside from those few friends and people I follow for my thesis on Twitter, the remainder of the people I follow are Food Network stars. Oh yes. I was ELATED to say the least when I found Paula Dean on Twitter. I think I almost fell out of my chair. Literally. So, needless to say, I cook a lot. But a lot of times when I'm looking at a recipe, I say to myself, "Why do I need 5 different kinds of tomato for this sauce?!?! When they're cooked they all taste the same! You know what? I'm gonna use cherry tomatoes 'cause they cook faster and they're easier to prep. Done!" So, essentially I'll take a complicated recipe and make it simple. Very few people can tell when I've changed a recipe to make it simple, and of those that can tell, even fewer care that I've changed it. I try to do this kind of thing a lot in life. I get in these stages where there are a few pieces of clothing that I like to wear, so I'll rotate them in about weekly spurts. The only part of life that is not simple for me is shoes. I have, at last count, 59 pairs of shoes. All of them different. If only slightly. Probably have of those shoes are black. I can't help it. It is my one weakness when it comes to being simple. Shoes are not simple.
