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It can scarcely be denied that the supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience.
-Albert Einstein
Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler
-Albert Einstein (paraphrased)
You can only simplify the message you are trying to convey so much before it becomes corrupted. Before the thing you try to say becomes a shallow theme-park version.
Such simplified versions are popular. This is where the phrase ‘lowest common denominator’, a mathematical term, gets repurposed. The intellectual content of a piece is ground down a simplified beyond the point where it maintains coherence, entropy takes sway, and what is left is bland and without significance.
Some artists choose to never simplify, to never make their pieces more accessible, from sheer terror that they might e(r)ode some meaningful part of their work. There is some basis for this fear, because even the author never can know what’s truly important. Those FRACTIONS we excise because they seem insignificant but actually form the heart of the piece. In the end, we only have our instincts to guide us as to, whether in the end, we are snipping away the rose or the thorn.
And, sometimes, it’s the thorn we really needed anyway.
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[…] Last week I played Frog Fractions. Frog Fractions is a fun game! In Frog Fractions, you play as a 4frog. Bugs try to eat your fruit so you have to eat the bugs. When you eat the bugs you get points. I think it’s g2ross that frogs eat bugs but maybe frogs think it’s gross that we eat ch8ocolate??? […]