The injunction to dare to be silly is not a license to be undisciplined. In fact, doing really innovative theory requires much more intellectual discipline than working in a well-established literature. What is really hard is to stay on course: since the terrain is unfamilar, it is all too easy to find yourself going around in circles. Somewhere or other Keynes wrote that "it is astonishing what foolish things a man thinking alone can come temporarily to believe". And it is also crucial to express your ideas in a way that other people, who have not spent the last few years wrestling with your problems and are not eager to spend the next few years wrestling with your answers, can understand without too much effort.
... it takes some sophistication to realize that simplicity may be the result of years of hard thinking.
This reminds me of Whistler:
When this work was exhibited in 1877, the famous art critic John Ruskin declared: "I have seen, and heard, much of cockney impudence before now; but never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public's face." Whistler immediately took up the challenge, issuing a lawsuit for libel. Whistler's intention in filing suit was not only to defend his artistic reputation, but to use the trial as a forum for a debate on the nature of art itself. Throughout the trial, he was to avoid referring to his canvasses as "pictures," instead calling them "arrangements," "nocturnes" and even "a problem that I attempt to solve." ... In the most important exchange of the trial, Ruskin's defense asked in contempt: "The labor of two days is that for which you ask two hundred guineas?" Whistler responded: "No. I ask it for the knowledge I have gained in the work of a lifetime." http://www.glyphs.com/art/whistler/
Whistler's intention in filing suit was not only to defend his artistic reputation, but to use the trial as a forum for a debate on the nature of art itself. Throughout the trial, he was to avoid referring to his canvasses as "pictures," instead calling them "arrangements," "nocturnes" and even "a problem that I attempt to solve." ...
In the most important exchange of the trial, Ruskin's defense asked in contempt: "The labor of two days is that for which you ask two hundred guineas?" Whistler responded: "No. I ask it for the knowledge I have gained in the work of a lifetime."
http://www.glyphs.com/art/whistler/
