Here's a pre-party conversation between my wife and I, a few weeks ago.
"For the party tonight, wear the black suit with a black shirt," she said.
"Really? That'll make me feel as if I am going to a funeral," I replied. "Can't I just wear jeans?"
She looked heaven-wards, and shook her head. "Jeans? Jeans?! The hosts are very sophisticated people. Please wear the grey suit then."
"I thought these people are simple, down to earth folks," I muttered under my breath.
"Honey, simplicity and sophistication go hand-in-hand," she said.
And she was so right. Simplicity and sophistication do go together. The more I think about this, one cannot exist without the other. What is "Sophisticated"? Am I sophisticated? I really don't know about myself. Individuals who can make that call are the folks I know, colleagues I work with and people I interact with on a day-to-day basis. Here's a catch though, the person who has that opinion better be sophisticated too.
If I am not sophisticated, what will get me to that haloed ground? A certain type of wardrobe, the way I talk, more worldly knowledge, a keen sense of the arts, a specific kind of demeanor....? The list can go on and on. A little bit of everything might be the answer. One can try to ride the road to sophistication on wads of dollar bills, but it's a slippery path, generally with pathetic results.
As Leonardo da Vinci famously quoted - "Simplicity is the ultimate Sophistication." And the one major step towards a life of simplicity is to learn to let go. Any intelligent egomaniac can make things more complicated and complex. It takes class and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.
Every section of society, every social circle, sets its own bar regarding the threshold of crossing into their own elite world of sophistication. We are all drawn towards that world instinctively as we grow in years. Consciously trying to act sophisticated never works.
"Sophistication is not how you look in fancy clothes, but how the clothes look on you. Its not how much expensive jewelry you carry on your body, but how you carry yourself. Its not how much money you make, but how humble money has made you." ~anonymous
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