Last year, Murali, from his Thought Garage, expanded on some perspectives I offered in the comments of a Berkun Blog comparing those who “complexify” and those who “simplify.” For simplifiers familiar with the often-debilitating effects of complexifiers (at least, in the world of software development, where “real world” issues like deadlines and deliverables reign,) the problem is what do we do with redundancy when we can’t take it out back and shoot it in the head?

The irony of adding to a lengthy discussion on the topic is hopefully not lost on us, but I feel compelled to add that this is precisely the problem Zen addresses. That is, there is a way to directly experience the truth of our situation without expending excess energy on processes that do not serve us. During walking meditation yesterday, it occurred to me that Yeats said this very thing to me in The Coming of Wisdom with Time:

THOUGH leaves are many, the root is one; Through all the lying days of my youth I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun; Now I may wither into the truth. –Yeats, William Butler

So, the solution? Read. Read more. Read even yet still more.

Then, go ask a tree.

"...have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer." –Rainer Maria Rilke

Another Alice. Possibly one I’ve dated. Artist unknown.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Death Star Van:

Warren: What the hell is that? Andrew: Death Star, dude! Wicked huh? Johnathan: The thermal exhaust port is above the main port, numbnuts. Andrew: For your information, I'm using the Empire's revised designs from Return of the Jedi.