^{Deep in thought at the Rodin Museum, Paris (Photo by me)}

There’s a little Japanese restaurant I go to that has customers order their food at the cash register up front, then find a table and wait for their meal to be brought to them.  The staff must have gotten tired of being asked how it worked, because they have a whiteboard at the entrance explaining the process.  Diagonally alongside the three numbered steps, there is a scrawled note:

Complicated?
Don’t be.
It’s worth it!

Whenever I go in, I read that note and consider what it means.  Of course, I can guess what it was intended to say: “Really, it’s simple, so don’t be confused. And our food is worth it!”  But either no one has corrected them on how to more clearly express what they mean, or they don’t care, or -- and this is what really tickles my imagination -- perhaps this isn’t about their serving procedure at all, but a philosophical message.  If so, what are they trying to say?

Because you have to admit – it sounds rather contradictory.  If you put the word “not” in front of “worth,” it would make sense:  Don’t make a big fuss in life, it’s not worth it.  Or, leaving the wording as it is, it could mean that if I simplify my complicated approach to life, the change will be worth it.

But I have another explanation.  Because...I’m a complicated person.

I think the sign is saying that while, yes, we should be simple, mindful, and emptied of all desire in that good Zen way…on the other hand, being complicated is worth it.  A sort of “embrace your contradictions” philosophy.  And that brings to mind one of my favorite quotes:

Do I contradict myself?
Very well, then I contradict myself.
I contain multitudes.
~ Walt Whitman

I like Whitman’s straightforward acceptance and even celebration of what we’ve come to think of as a character flaw.  Yes, we humans contradict ourselves.  Get over it, buddy!  That’s the way it is.  We contain multitudes!  

And who really wants to be simple anyway?  Isn’t being complicated a hell of a lot more interesting?  And isn’t everyone complicated and mysterious, even to themselves, when you get right down to it?

Some years ago, when I tried to delve into the deeper motivations of someone close to me, I was rebuffed with the claim that “I’m really not that deep dish.  What you see is what you get.”  

But I believe that we’re all a lot deeper than we appear, and that our feelings and motives are more complex than we tend to realize -- and that that’s precisely what makes human beings fascinating. That’s what enables writers to create novels and plays and poetry and films that enthrall us. Many great works of art present seemingly ordinary people leading normal lives, but with extraordinary insight into what goes on below the surface.  And we find it riveting to see our own inner labyrinths vicariously explored.

In my 30’s, I came up with the phrase “No feeling but a mixed feeling” to reflect my growing realization that my emotions were never simple and singular, but always full of seeming contradictions, such as simultaneously wanting to be close to someone but also fearing that closeness.  At any given moment, I think each of us is experiencing a mélange of feelings, which drive our behavior in ways that may seem inexplicable – but only if you assume that the surface tells all.  If you peel back the layers, there’s always something else underneath.  We’re onions with a heartbeat.

I actually like a simple approach to life.  The less stuff I own the better I feel, I like to focus on doing a few things rather than many, I’m alarmingly direct when communicating, I don’t like fuss or bother.  But I love richness of thought and feeling, both my own and that of others.  I hate superficial conversation and adore exploration and reflection.  I think life is messy and so are we.  

When I hear people trying to reduce a situation or a problem or an experience to something simple and easily summarized, as if human existence could be made into a sound bite, I wonder why they want to diminish what I think of as “life’s rich pageant.”  Why suck the complexity out of life?  Why not savor it?  

But a lot of people want to “simplify, simplify, simplify” – and not in the way Thoreau was suggesting.  They create a simple version of the world and stick to it, like a thief with a flimsy alibi that he won’t abandon, even under tough questioning.  They want things to be easily explicable, whether it’s their partner’s behavior or the origins of the universe.

And they think this is actually a virtue, far superior to a more complex, nuanced viewpoint, which draws accusations of relativism (which for some reason is evil) or intellectualism (and we know how dirty that is).  Me, I tend view life the way Churchill famously saw Russia:  A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.  

I’d like to ascribe my beliefs to great philosophical explorations, but the truth is that the most profound insights I have about life tend to come from some of the most inconsequential things.  For example, when I was 11 years old, an elderly relative gave me an odd little book of humorous ditties that I found strangely fascinating and read repeatedly.  Today all I can remember is this one:

See the happy moron,
He doesn’t give a damn.
I wish I were a moron.
My god, perhaps I am!

Whenever I’m tempted to avoid the pain of being fully human, I think of that little poem and remind myself that only an idiot avoids the beauty of life in all its chaotic glory.  

So I say:  Be complicated.  It’s worth it.

But do place your order at the counter before finding your seat.