My simple answer was, “Dear, you see, I need to go to work so I can make money, so we can have nice things and eat nice meals.” She accepted that answer as truth.

What I didn’t say was that I enjoy going to work. That there are days when going to work is a break from the kids, as much as I love them, and that while I would certainly rather spend the day with her and her brother, there are times when I need to get out and think at an adult level.

I didn’t mention that I don’t work for the money, but for the challenge – for the drive, for the thrill of making things, for the rush that comes with collaborating with other people.

I just said I was going to make money. It was the easy answer. Because I didn’t have the time – nor did she have the attention – for me to tell her truth: that it’s much much more complicated than that.

Deforestation

If there’s one thing that fuels today’s grab for pageviews, it’s opinions. Hard ones. This or that. Nothing in between. Nothing that veers into the hazy grey field of compromise.

“Summarize that,” they say. “Give me the bullet point version,” they demand. Time is of essence. Boil it down so it no longer needs thought.

So when we talk about whether the New York Times should be more vigilant in their fact checking, or whether yoga will cause you irreparable harm, we’re predisposed to boil it down to the most simple argument. I know I do this. We all do, in some ways.

Maybe it’s not our fault. Maybe we’ve been taught to believe that the ability to create concise descriptions of complicated things is a sign of success when. Really, it’s the opposite. You’ve succeeded when you can explain a complex subject without losing the nuance. I know: that’s hard to do. So we summarize. So we cut corners. We ignore the complexity.

It’s not a matter of missing the forest for the trees – it’s that we’re cutting down all of the trees and wondering where the forest went.

On Argument

A year and a half ago, during the 2010 South Dakota Festival of Books, I watched Michael Hart – the late founder of Project Gutenberg – and Michael Dirda – Pulitzer Prize-winning book critic – present a panel on “Reading in the Digital Age.”

As one might expect, Hart spoke at length about how the printed book was dead, that all writing should be done digitally for the benefit of mass consumption and for those who may not be able to afford a printed tome. Dirda, on the other hand, spoke about the necessity of aesthetics, of the tactile nature of holding a book in your hand, of the feeling of being that you cannot recreate in an e-reader.

Both made some good points. But the title of the panel is misleading. This presentation was no more about reading in the digital age than it was about koala mating habits. Where we expected some sort of solid discourse on where print vs. digital may eventually compromise, we instead received a kind of ribald sniping. It was a battle between two opposing viewpoints, both refusing to admit middle ground, incapable of giving an inch.

While the answer lie somewhere in the middle of the pitch, these two men fought over which side of the field to enter.

Respecting Complexity

If a single idea has followed me around this year, from politics to art and work to friendships, it’s been this one: “it’s more complicated than that.”

It’s centrally important to seek simplicity, and especially to avoid making things hard to use or understand. But if we want to make things that are usefully simple without being truncated or simplistic, we have to recognize and respect complexity — both in the design problems we address, and in the way we do our work.

Erin Kissane, “What I Learned About the Web in 2011″ via A List Apart

My experience at the South Dakota Festival of Books is no different than any experience one might find watching cable television, or at a political debate, or when discussing which Led Zeppelin album is the best. We’ve been trained to take a side and dig in for battle.

When we go to battle intellectually, we find comfort in absolutes. They afford us a bit of security. There are no holes to be poked in our theories.

Part of the challenge of art and science and rhetoric is in finding the nuances; there is no topic worth discussing that doesn’t hold some grey area, and there is no grey area that is worth ignoring. But grey areas? They’re hard. So we ignore them. And that’s how misinterpretation seeps into our lives.

Naming Things

Take, for example, the industry in which I work: web design, development and strategy. For the past several years, people have tried to put together a simple, concise description of content strategy – what is it, and how do we quickly explain it to our bosses? We understand that there’s a need for that description in a business sense, but our answer is often lacking in nuance. We trade length for clarity; we discard the messy details to gain a certain level of buzzworthiness.

Truth is, content strategy means different things to different people. What’s more, THAT’S OKAY. Just as “web development” means different things to different people, we still have freedom to interpret our work in a way that makes sense to us.

So we stick with “content strategy” – an awkward word that barely captures the extent of what we do. But we’re not alone in this: language is hard, and though we struggle to assign simple words to complex arrangements, and though they may seem trite and inaccurate, oftentimes it’s the best we can do.

Communication isn’t perfect. Again: THAT’S OKAY.

This is not an industry-specific thing, either. Ask someone to explain the scientific method. Depending on their field of expertise, you may hear several variations of the base process. Ask someone to explain something with a clear purpose and structured set of rules – baseball, for instance. Ask a baseball fan. Ask a baseball historian. Ask someone with no connection to the game. To some, it’s a game. To others, it’s a past-time. To the haters, it’s a distraction.

Black. White.

Words allow us to communicate. But they also fail us, in that we’re driven to compress theories that should, in fact, become more robust. We’re taught to say more with less, to edit and edit until there’s nothing left to chance, to push things into a smaller box. So we cut the non-crucial elements. And we lose the nuance. And we wonder why this seemingly complicated theory has been boiled down to a Cliff’s Notes version – all solution, no reasoning.

Sure, most things should be said in fewer words. But there are a lot of things that should be said in more.

We’re challenged to understand the future in as complete a way as possible. To shy away from absolutes, and to embrace the grey area, charging in full speed and making sense of the fray. There are discoveries there. There is truth. There is completeness.

We can’t take one side or the other – not in good faith – without understanding that, regardless of the subject, it’s often more complicated than that.

War is good. War is bad. It’s more complicated than that.

We should be liberal. We should be conservative. It’s more complicated than that.

We should fight to stay neutral, and we should always look at all angles of a subject, and we should stop trying to sum up incredibly complex processes and concepts and feelings into simple, single-serving soundbites. We should run to the middle and be implicit in our embrace.

Except, let’s be honest.

It’s more complicated than that.

They have consequences, regardless of what we want to believe. They are fueled by thought and disseminated through action. We may try to write them off as “only words,” but words are powerful and consequential. They have meaning.

Words provoke action. They are at the base of every powerful political speech, every heartbreaking dramatic scene, every rousing pep talk. Words incited 60s racism. Words helped change culture. Words drove people to elect a black President.

We live in a word that’d dominated by communication, and we see that communication take many forms. Ultimately, the base of all communication is words, whether they’re spoken or written or inferred. Everything that’s posted or said or sung or stuttered out in Morse code can be interpreted and comprehended and acted upon.

Given enough build up, words can cause panic. Passion. Hatred. Fear. Violence.

You can use your voice to rile up a crowd to the point that they begin throwing bricks through Starbucks windows. You can post inflammatory hate speech against local politicians. You can rouse your followers by asking them to “reload.” You can literally target – and we mean literally, here, with maps and little target symbols and names – those who don’t subscribe to the same ideals.

You can do those things. But you can’t stagger backwards and claim you had nothing to do with the result. You can’t call for a pizza and act surprised when one shows up at your door.

Jared Loughner may be a pot smoking conspiracy theorist. He may be a kook-bird Tea Party activist gone wrong. One thing has been revealed, however: he believed in the power of words. He sought their truth. He understood their consequences.

He was led by words. He acted upon words. He killed in the name of words. He killed innocent people. He killed a child. And he did it upon the back of someone’s words.

We don’t yet know whose words.

But don’t let anyone EVER tell you that whatever they say is “only words.”

Words have meaning, damn it. Pity it keeps taking death to remind us.

There’s this thing called “net neutrality.” It’s a concept that’s often treated as an amorphous blob of policy wonkage. It’s also the number one reason we’re able to access the Internet openly and without boundaries.

The skinny: the FCC is currently proposing new regulations that threaten net neutrality. Maybe you haven’t heard much, yet. You would be forgiven – there haven’t been many good bird’s-eye-views of its importance.

Until now: A Guide to the Open Internet.

Network neutrality is the idea that your cellular, cable, or phone internet connection should treat all websites and services the same. Big companies like AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast want to treat them differently so they can charge you more depending on what you use.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is currently debating legislation to define limits for internet service providers (ISPs). The hope is that they will keep the internet open and prevent companies from discriminating against different kinds of websites and services.

Not to be bossy, but CLICK THAT LINK. Scroll down. Learn the importance of net neutrality. And make it known that you won’t stand for it. Not you. Not me. Not your Netflix watching friend. Not your Farmville-obsessed mom. This isn’t political. This is an issue of lifestyle, finances, freedom and empowerment.

I’d hate to look back at 2010 as the salad days of Internet usage.

In other words, our tax returns will use the same language that we use in our everyday lives, free from governmental and legal platitudes. What a concept.

Understanding that over-technical and legal-ridden verbiage is harmful to both simplicity and comprehension, and armed with governmental action on behalf of the Plain Writing movement, shouldn’t we take a cue from this new law?

Shouldn’t we, within our power, enact our own version of this act?

The Plain and Practical Mission Statement Act.

The Understandable Utility Contract Act.

The Explaining Physics Act.

The Frequently Asked Questions that Actually Answer Frequently Asked Questions Act.

The Cut Pretentiousness From Your “About Us” Section Act.

The Filling Out Health Insurance Forms Without Screaming Act.

If we write, we’re culpable. We’re the ones who can push this change even further, until we’ve stripped away the clutter and cleave the bond between “Important” and “Overwritten.”

So it is written.

I received your letter in the mail today. Congratulations on your apparent candidacy for state representative of District 13!

Though I have never heard of you in my life, your letter took me by surprise.

See, you refer to yourself as a Freedom Fighter. It’s right there in your signature! “Brian Liss, Your freedom fighter!” With exclamation points and everything!

Here’s the thing. Despite your letter’s insistence, governmental support for public services is not “socialism.” And the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act isn’t “unprecedented intergenerational theft.” (Also, you should probably hyphenate that one. “Inter-generational.”)

Those things don’t mean the same thing. They never have. Buy a dictionary.

I’m struggling to determine which freedoms you’re fighting for, and why I’m in need of a freedom fighter in the first place. I get it, though. You’re using baited buzz words in order to scare those who aren’t paying attention into backing the standard Conservative Agenda. Ha! Conservative Agenda. Get it? I’M USING YOUR TERM AGAINST YOU! LOL!

Let’s get one thing straight. I supported Susy Blake last election. And I will again, especially if you are running against her, Mr. Brian Liss, Republican. See, I appreciate a candidate that doesn’t run screaming to the party line in order to make a case for election. I respect a candidate that positions the argument as “here’s why you should vote for me,” not “here’s why my opponent sucks and why you shouldn’t vote for her.” Most of all, I’ll support a candidate that backs away from hyperbole and weasel words, instead offering factual evidence, explanation and cautious realism.

Oh, and there’s the issue of class. This letter has no class, Brian Liss, Republican. It’s brash and intrusive. It doesn’t belong in my mailbox. It doesn’t belong in any mailbox.

You missed an opportunity, I think. When you’re connecting to those of us who aren’t officially affiliated with a party, you are representing your entire party’s platform. So next time, remind me why I should vote for you. Because all you’ve done with THIS mailing is remind me why I never will.

And I knew how it felt to hear he went down. That he was gone. Forever.

It’s no wonder I still feel chills when I hear Mason Jennings’ “The Ballad of Paul and Sheila.” And when I think of what could have been – what role Wellstone would play in today’s government, where it’s hard to trust either side, where we’ve all become so disenchanted with the story and the acting that we’ve forgotten what the roles stood for in the first place.

To make the nation better. To keep things honest. For us. And for our kids.

I guess what I’m trying to say is this: I still miss Paul Wellstone.

October morning; little plane on the forest floor.
Up on the TV between a rerun and another war.
Here in a hotel, trying to make some sense of this.
Two thousand miles from my family in Minneapolis.

Hey Senator, I wanna say,
all the things you fought for did not die here today
Hey Senator, I’m gonna do,
all the things I can to live my life more like you lived.

-Mason Jennings, “The Ballad of Paul and Sheila”

They were astronomical. And we knew we could do better.

The reasoning was twofold. First, we knew we couldn’t afford an electric bill that ran nearly three times that from our old house. Second was a matter of pride – that we are able to watch what we use. That, despite our inklings otherwise, we’re armchair conversationalists.

We were lucky enough to see the problem immediately – electric baseboard heating in a very cold basement, connected with its own thermostat, was used more often than needed with two pre-teen boys playing video games non-stop during the winter.

And, we were lucky enough to have something to compare to.

If you knew what your neighbors were using, would you work otherwise? If you could see how you shaped up on average – for example, if you were using less than the neighborhood average, or if you were using more and saw the cost differential – would you make arrangements to change your habits?

According to an article in The Atlantic, energy companies are betting that yes, you would.

It’s being tracked by a company named Positive Energy, and it a new wave of controlling costs through guilt or competition. According to the article:

”In Positive Energy’s reports, a once-intangible bit of social information—how much energy you use relative to your neighbors—is made tangible. Now you can find out not just what people in the same city are doing, but what people in your neighborhood, living in the same-size houses, are doing … but also with customized tips on how to do better.”

Will it work? So far, it has.

”…in Sacramento, where Positive Energy began its pilot program with the Sacramento Municipal Utility District in 2008, people who received personalized “compared with your neighbors” data on their statements reduced their energy use by more than 2 percent over the course of a year. In energyspeak, a 2 percent reduction is huge; with the pilot sample of 35,000 homes, it’s the equivalent of taking 700 homes off the grid. And the cost to the utility is minor: for every dollar a utility spends on a solar power plant, it produces 3 to 4 kilowatt-hours; for every dollar a utility spends on the energy reports, it saves 10 times that.”

So, I say this to my local electric and gas companies: Go ahead. Guilt me into cutting back. Make me prove my ability to conserve.

It sounds like the type of challenge that we all could handle.

I’ve tried to tie this election to the leveling spirit of Paul Wellstone, to compare it to the future we might have had, to connect with the world we are creating for Sierra as she grows.

But it all comes down to one thing. One word. One emotion, one feeling, one promise.

HOPE.

I give thanks for the nation that helped elect the first black President. I give thanks for those who trusted a new generation of leaders, a new direction – an agent of change.

But most of all, I give thanks for all that has happened over the past two years – instilling in all of us the idea that, no matter who we are or where we live, hope will never be simply a four-letter word.

Because we see it now. HOPE is for real.

Take everything you love about sports coverage. The predictions, the numbers, the human interest stories. The battle of good and evil, of your team and their team, of underdogs and how the standings will shake out when it’s all said and done.

Now apply this to something with real consequence. Like the future of our country’s policies.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you Election Night Coverage!

It’s all there. Talking heads, trained to interpret and console, to think logically in the wake of so many decisions. They’re there to make you feel better. They’re Al Michaels or Pat Summerall, prepared to sum up the election in a matter of sentences.

There’s the opinion men and women, the John Maddens, the Tony Kornheisers, all prepared to put a little spin on the whole proceedings. They take the simple facts and turn them into speculation, both preparing us for the possible and reminding us of the excitement – the thrill of the chase.

Stats appeal to those who love concrete details. Candidate parties appeal to those who want to be included. Talk of surprising winners appeals to the underdog-chasers, and tales of real people doing real things touch a nerve in all of us.

This is our process. Our selection. We choose these people to run our country, and in these first few hours after polls close, our optimism (or pessimism, if your candidate is losing) is at its peak. If we win, we’re almost positive that everything will be perfect. If we lose, it might as well be the end of the world.

If you know what’s good for you, you’ve already voted – or at least you’ve made plans to vote. Now, sit back and watch this crazy process unfold. Grab a beer, make predictions – hell, take bets if it makes things more exciting.

You only get to see this kind of spectacle once every four years. Grab your foam fingers and start rooting for your candidate.

Because it’s all downhill from here.

Of course, it’s wasn’t just Sioux Falls either. Ask Peter Frampton.

It doesn’t make me any less mad – I mean, come on, what a chicken-shit thing to do, really – but at least I know we aren’t alone.

It’s amazing what a fear of defeat can make some people do. And in the case of this sign, it’s amazing what loyalty to the idea of change can produce.