A Nod to Nuance

“When one is young, one venerates and despises without that art of nuances which constitutes the best gain of life…”

            - Friedrich Nietzsche  

The gaiety and bousterousness of the Chinese New Year is hopefully behind us now. We can all dive back into our work and look forward to an exciting year ahead. Chinese New Year always seem to me to come at an inconvenient time:  that is, right after we've had thoroughly rested and refreshed ourselves during the Christmas and New Year break, and now, ready to pounce right back to work. Suddenly, there's another excuse to delay things for another month or so. ("We'll start the project after CNY"). But this year, we have the fasting month of Ramadan coming right on the heels of CNY.  

I'm trying to get back into the rhythm of weekly work. Now that I have the opportunity to define what I want to work on, I want to use the time wisely and efficiently. My weekly blog articles are still going on schedule. I am here today at Komugi Cafe, hoping to complete this article and dive back into a few of my pursuits. 

While I was watching some interviews over Youtube just now, I noticed how frequently interviewers like to force their guests to choose between two different extreme options:  for example: Is AI going to bring forth a new era of scientific and medical breakthroughs, which will solve many of our problems, or is it going to doom humanity, destroying jobs and making us slaves to machines? 

The real answer is always nuanced, somewhere in between. But we don't like answers like that. Yes and no; good and bad; positive and negative. Our minds expect binary answers, which can simplify our worlds. We want someone to tell us what to do. Left or right? Up or down. One or zero. If we have that clarity, we can execute immediately, without thinking.

Unfortunately, the world is always nuanced. This is where wisdom comes in. Intelligence is the ability to find solutions to different problems; wisdom is knowing the right amount of action and its timing to achieve the best outcome. Not everything is black or white. It's always a shade of grey. What is the right proportion of black, mixed with white, to get the shade of grey we want? That takes wisdom, which comes from an instinct honed by experience. 

Having a nuanced understanding of a problem means we must have a large context window (not unlike LLMs). We do not only look at a handful of pros and cons and then see which side wins, but we assess the situation consciously and subconsciously, allowing all facts to slowly find their level in our minds, before applying the right thinking model for the best predictive outcome. It is often slower, but certainly better than being rushed into action.

Sometimes, no action is better, because some situations resolve themselves over time. Any action will be disruptive to something that only requires time to play itself out. This is especially so when parties involved in a situation are emotional. Any action performed out of anger or over-exuberance tends not to be wise. Let things find their level first, and then decide. 

Even when one has decided and acted, one could still end up being wrong. But knowing that one is wrong is also part of wisdom. When one is going in the wrong direction, simply notice it and take that as feedback for correcting course. Adaptability and agility are qualities that are compatible with a nuanced understanding of the world.

Unfortunately, in the world of social media, advertising and political discourse, being nuanced will often not gain you many followers, simply because your message does not appeal to emotion. Clickbaits work by highlighting an extreme view that hooks you in immediately. Nuances confuse the mind. The social media mind does not think; it simply emotes. 

In our fast-paced world of instant action and gratification, let's try to slow down a little so that nuance has a chance to seep into our decision-making.  Nuance is not indecision or hesitation; it is simply wisdom in motion.