Choosing Clarity Over Cleverness

It's easy to mistake cleverness for quality.

A tight abstraction. A smart trick. A sentence that sounds impressive the first time you read it.

The problem is that clever things ask for attention. Clear things don't.

When Clever Gets in the Way

Clever solutions tend to center themselves.

You notice the move instead of the meaning. You pause to decode instead of continuing forward.

That pause adds up.

What Clear Feels Like

Clear work feels quiet.

You don't notice the structure. You don't stop to interpret intent. You just move.

That doesn't mean it's simple. It means the complexity is organized well enough that you don't have to carry it all at once.

Removing Instead of Adding

Most clarity comes from removal.

Fewer concepts. Fewer layers. Fewer words doing unnecessary work.

I try to treat clarity as a design choice now. If something feels slightly confusing to me, it will be very confusing to someone else.

Clear work respects attention. And attention is expensive.