There are words that come in pairs, and
people tend to use them interchangeably. Very often, if one examines
these words, there are shades between them. The two that clarify this
kind of relationship to me are the words complex and complicated.
Complex carries, to me, a positive
sense. A sense of many different components or aspects working
together well. Watches are (or at least were), complex. Ecosystems,
good novels, good arguments even good relationships are complex.
But complicated things are those
wherein those many different components or aspects do not work well
together. Bureaucracies are complicated (usually on purpose). Bad
novels, bad games and bad court cases are complicated instead of
complex.
Listen to which of those words people
use when communicating, and you'll learn something important about
whether they think something is good or bad. In fact, this kind of
word choice can tell you a lot of things, and comes up more than
people realize. Listening to that word choice is crucial to
understanding what people really mean. It will tell you a great deal
about what the person is thinking underneath what they're saying.
And it's sad that this is the case.
People are more likely to be complicated than complex, I suppose, but
wouldn't it be nice if one didn't have to analyze them in order to
achieve basic understanding?
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