Why are Simple Things Hard?

This is a follow up discussion to my article Do Simple Things Well where I discuss how the basics are overlooked in pursuit of the complexity resulting in quality deficit. I argue that there's much to be desired in this world for basic tasks being performed competently. Here, I take this a step further and share anecdotally why I think it can be challenging to perform simple tasks.

So why can simple things be difficult?

Visibility

Slow down your practice. It could be for a hobby, instrument, sport, etc. What happens? Small details becomes painfully exposed. When practicing a scale on the piano, drop the metronome from 100 beats per minute (BPM) to 60 BPM. Every note, every stroke of the key is audibly heard. There's nowhere to hide. Your effort is completely exposed.

Exposure is anxiety provoking. Imagine performing a task for someone. Now your audience grows by one to two, and so on. Incrementally, the fear associated with greater exposure grows. Let's call this horizontal exposure. The same action or activity is being demonstrated to more and more observers. Should we graph the relationship of our anxiety against a count of observers, I hypothesize that a logarithmic relationship would be revealed. Early on, anxiety increases rapidly with each marginal observer. But this relationship diminishes as observer count grows.

For example, it's reasonable to expect the marginal anxiety from an audience growing from 1 to 2 be be considerably larger than the marginal anxiety from an audience growing from 1,000 to 1,001.

This would look something like:

Now consider another dimensionality to exposure: Rather than increasing the number of persons focusing on the tasks performing, imagine applying focus to fewer tasks performed more slowly. Let's call this vertical exposure. 

My concept of vertical exposure follows my earlier metaphor with the piano. As tempo is slowed and each action is carefully and visibly revealed, mistakes cannot be missed or ignored. Even to an audience of one, yourself, you're made to confront your error. This is a vulnerable position to be in. Visibility like this can cause us considerable discomfort.

For this reason, I believe a preference for the complex. When dealing with complexity, perhaps we anticipate greater allowance for failure. You're not thought the fool for failure on hard problems; perhaps even brave for approaching hard problems. But this overlooks whether the lesser-evolved problem would have been solved. Following the same metaphor, sure your finger slipped will keying your scale at 120 BPM, but would you have avoided the same error at 60 BPM?

This question must be answered and answered in the negative before progressing or mediocrity is the inevitable outcome.

Noise

Noise can be shelter. It shelters our actions from scrutiny. Image striking up a conversation with the person adjacent in a room full of other persons also sharing in conversation. This probably would feel to intimidating to do aside from those who experience considerable social anxiety. But now consider how it would feel to begin a conversation in the same crowded room but this time no one is speaking. The room is dead silent. Now we may find this situation unnerving. 

Why? As the earlier discussion earlier alluded, an audience effect could be to blame. Knowing we're being observed affects our behavior. We're no longer hidden amongst the noise. 

Perhaps this anxiety relates to the natural world where the absence of noise suggests the presence of a predator. Imagine walking through a vibrant forest enjoying conversation with your hiking mate. In the background, birds are chirping and creatures on the ground and the bushes scurry about. Then you notice that the forest has turned quiet. Without thinking, you both cease conversation and join the silence. Your heart rate increases as does your fear.

We have a natural tendency to participate and blend in, rather than stand out.

Worst of all things we wish not to stand out: failures and errors. Noise shields our errors from notice. The miskey from the soloist is noticed immediately whereas the musician of the larger band makes an error that's unperceivable.

Final Thoughts

Being visible and standing out against the noise is anxiety provoking. But it's also necessary. Without recognition, errors persist. An miskey on the piano at high tempo is not likely corrected with repetition at high tempo. Rather, speed must be reduced and the simpler task must be perfected prior to advancing. Without achieving mastery sequentially, we're doomed for mediocrity. The cloak of noise may fool others and even yourself for a time. But the errors and failures remain whether recognized or not.