Are We Ready for Complexity ?
2 . Find the complex in the everyday . What if you are too busy to set up a fish tank or play a silly game ? You can take note of complexity ( and complication ) as you go about your daily business . When you are at the grocery store , or on the train , or walking the dog , think about aspects of the situation that are complex and complicated . How can you tell which aspects are which ? Try this . If the word " should " makes sense , it is a complicated aspect of the situation . If the word " usually " makes sense , it is a complex aspect . An architectural plan is a great big box of should . A roomful of puppies is a lovable bundle of usually .
Here is an example to get you started . I used to drive to work on a parkway that had a service road : a smaller , parallel road that everyone knew they could shunt over to when traffic slowed . One day , I was driving along a particular curve in the road when traffic slowed even more than it usually did just there . Fearing a traffic jam ahead , I prepared to switch to the service road . Several other drivers had the same thought , and we all squeezed ourselves into the left turning lane . After a long wait , I arrived at the intersection where I could get to the service road , only to discover that there was no traffic jam beyond the intersection . We had created the jam we were trying to avoid .
The complicated aspects of that situation were put in place by whoever designed the parkway route and its intersections ( in that case , too close to the preceding curve to allow drivers to see whether there was actually traffic ahead ). The complex aspects of the situation had to do with the people driving on the road , some of whom were clueless and doomed to create the same jam over and over , and others who understood that the whole thing was a mirage . I joined the latter group on that day , but my revelation did not help much , because new clueless people joined us all the time .
Developing the habit of noticing such patterns , teasing out their complex and complicated aspects , and keeping them in mind as you read about complexity can help you think critically about the things people say about it .
3 . Talk to people who spend more time with complexity . I said above that we do not spend much time with complexity today , but some people still do . Farmers still do . ( Percent of U . S . population employed as farmers in 1800 : 83 . Percent today : 2 ). Also , foresters , ecologists , hunters , and ( to a lesser extent , due to authorities and procedures ) day care workers , teachers , firefighters , emergency crews . When you meet someone who spends more time with complexity than you do , ask them questions , listen , and learn from the way they think .
I happened upon an example of this in a New Yorker article just as I was preparing this paper for publication . Mukherjee ( 2017 ), an oncologist , described his conversation with an ecologist :
[ E ] cologists are a frustrating lot , at least if you ’ re a doctor . Part of
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