03.07.2026

S: Do you think there was ever a time when life was just simple?

A: I doubt it.

S: So do I. An unusual agreement. For once.

A: Not at all. We agree in many things. But yet, it is always necessary to discuss and to debate. You are yearning for a simpler life?

S: Would it suit me?

A: You are a complicated person. Therefore you have a complicated life.

S: Life is complicated because other people are complicated. I am very simple by nature.

A: Really? Despite every ingredient for happiness, you remain dissatisfied.

S: The community is dissatisfied. We live for the community. Therefore, we have to share their dissatisfaction.

A: So you blame the complications of life on other people?

S: Look at life. Work for instance. A meritocracy is simple. However, there is no meritocracy. They complicate the issue by looking at popularity and proximity instead of meritocracy. Factors such as class and ethnicity and gender determine the outcome of interviews, not talent, experience and qualification.

A: The typically jaded view.

S: Which, nonethless, is true. The same model is exported into dating, friendship, every opportunity. Therefore, simplicity is abandoned in favour of needless, arbitrary and unethical complication. It matters more whether you prefer a hobby than your worth.

A: Yet there are those that are fair and strive to be fair despite all of that.

S: True. The ideal of fairness jostles with the social compulsion of unfairness. Again, another complication.

A: You could not live in a simple life. It would be too perfect. Inhuman.

S: It is difficult living in a complicated life.