PUBLIC REPLY TO PRIVATE QUERY ON FACEBOOK

PUBLIC REPLY TO PRIVATE QUERY ON FACEBOOK
by Andy Weddington
Saturday, 05 August 2017

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. Leonardo da Vinci

Last evening I meandered down the street to a cookout with new friends and to welcome still more new arrivals to our fabulous neighborhood.

Beautiful evening. Perfect weather. Grilled and baked foods. Some spirits. Many laughs. Games for the youngsters. The camaraderie the best part. And for some odd reason mosquitos did not crash the party. 

Sitting and swapping stories at a picnic table, a Navy gent reminisced about a great high-level Pentagon boss he once worked for. He spoke to strengths and peculiarities. And he remembered a quote, "I sleep like a baby at night. I awaken every two hours and cry."

In context to the storytelling, hilarious. 

To that point momentarily.

This morning over coffee I read a Facebook private message ...

"Still feel like Trump is your man?"

I paused a moment and looked around. 

Beside me to port lay my five-string banjo. 

Five strings. Three finger picks. How much simpler could it get?

In front of me atop the coffee table a couple of books about the painter Sergei Bongart. 

Overriding theme to his approach to painting? Simplicity. 

And for some inexplicable reason I thought about six-word short stories. 

Tell a complete story in six words. Simple. 

Simplicity is my way; in everything. And always has been. Too many moving parts is not chaos but confusion prime for disaster.

Music is not about notes in music. 

Painting is not about colors in painting.

Writing is not about words in writing.

It is absolutely about the arrangement of notes, colors, and words.

In arranging things, thought and creativity required. Trial and error. Experiment. 

But careful what you measure. For what you fail to hear and see may be what you should have been measuring.  

Harmony is difficult. And fleeting. 

A niece in Washington, D. C. working on a Masters in national security at Georgetown told me last weekend she has some tests forthcoming and an example question might be, "What is power?"  

To her ...

Power is simplicity. 

Simplicity (power) commands attention. 

Power is momentary.

Or, in six words ...

Power: Simple. Commands attention. And momentary. 

Beautiful and not beautiful power depends upon the (complexity of) filters. 

Pretty simple.

Which makes it sophisticated. 

A few years ago I entered an Ernest Hemingway six-word short story competition. My words complemented a simple painting.

In six words ...

Did not win. Nor place. Disappointed. 

So, to the seven-word query on Facebook posed me ...

In six words ...

Good! President Trump is the man.

So much so I no longer sleep like a baby - awakening every two hours and crying. 

In closing, four six-word short story thoughts ... 

Eight years of Obama nonsense aplenty. 

And we escaped Hillary Clinton's eight. 

Go Trump! Make American Great Again! 

Presently, a simpler reply escapes me.