Keep it simple, stupid. Great advice. Hurts my feelings every time: The Power of the List

Of all the things being a journalist taught me about life, the best was that there is beauty in simplicity. You shouldn't be saying something in five words that you can say in two. There is nearly always a better single word to replace multiple words. Simplicity in writing, as you may recall, is something that I completely appreciate. I have the attention span of a five-year-old, so I like getting information as quickly as possible - as do most in my generation, I imagine.

Which is why, as you might have guessed by my blog's title, I love lists. I love every form they can take. Shopping lists. To-do lists. Goal lists. 25 things about me Lists. Things I'm thinking about lists. Things I should be doing lists. Word lists. Words I shouldn't say lists. Types of shoes I own lists. Christmas lists. Playlists. Bills list (admittedly, this one is not my favorite, but still). Movies I've loved lists. Desert Island lists. 

There are also a great many wonderful things that are just fancy lists. Schedules, for example, are just lists with an assigned time. Mnemonic devices? Just lists with letters. Think about it. My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine (Pizzas). Just a list in a specific order. Lists like to dress it up every once in a while - who doesn't? - but, all the same, they remain lists at heart. 
Almost anything complex is a better when turned into a list. Take, for example, complex physics. You could very easily get a large book and use that to teach yourself physics. Or you could make a list:

1. Summer in Greece staring at stars.
2. Observation.
3. Newton. 
4. Blah blah blah.
5. Many years pass.
6. Einstein. 
7. More years pass.
8. Sheldon Cooper. 

See?! Big book or 8 point list? The choice is obvious. Now, I never claimed that the list was more informative. In fact, more often than not, the list is less informative because it's condensing something big into something small. The list is an organized summary, which is why the list is not always the most effective device - though usually the more enjoyable. I mean think of how much you lose if you tried to condense Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet into a list:

1. Family 1 hates Family 2 in old city in Europe.
2. Boy from Family 1 is sulking, decides to crash party with friends.
3. Boy meets girl from Family 2 and stalks her outside of a window.
4. Girl still falls for boy, despite creepiness.
5. Teenagers learn each others last names, grow upset and rebel by getting married.
6. Person in girl's family kills person in boy's family, fueling tensions. 
7. Boy and girl stage girl's death.
8. Confusion amounts, and boy thinks girl is really dead; kills self.
9. Girl awakes to dead boy, kills self. Audience cries.
10. Moral: fighting is bad.

Where is the thumb biting? Where is the rose by any other name? Where is thy happy dagger? Gone for the sake of the list. Lists are enjoyable - admit it, you totally laughed at the micro-version of this classic love story. But the purpose of the list is not to stand alone, despite its concise nature. No, the purpose of the list is to summarize, to remind, to jump off of.

Your shopping list? A summary of material things you lack. You write down toilet paper - but you mean that that morning when you had to pee you panicked because you only had one roll left. Your 25 Things about Me list - admit it, you have one - just a summary of your life, with each point pointing to a story about something that's happened to you. Top 10 Lists - just a way to get into a debate about the merits of the winners or who should have made the list. Funny, it seems that lists often begat more lists. It's a vicious cycle, but one that only serves to illustrate just how great a device a list can be. But maybe that's just how I look at things...maybe everything is really just a spring board to something else, a reminder of another person which can lead to a quip about that one time.

Which reminds me...as if by some form of list magic, Time just released this - this which is everything great about lists. It's the exact definition of a list with more umph, as each list item is a link to something more. 

Enjoy.