Making the simple complicated is commonplace. Making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.

Anyone can pile on detail until a thing becomes impenetrable. The rarer skill is to dig through the tangle and find the clear shape underneath. Mingus is saying that complexity is cheap, because it often just records our own confusion, while real simplicity is earned by understanding something so well that you can leave most of it out. The word "awesomely" matters. He doesn't mean dumbed down, but simple in a way that makes you stop and marvel.

This fits Mingus as a jazz bassist and composer, whose music was intricate and sprawling yet meant to feel direct and human, driven by feeling rather than display. The line is widely credited to him, though its exact original source is hard to pin down. It echoes an old craft ideal found in many arts: clarity is the product of long labor, not the starting point.

Today, you might apply it the next time you have to explain a project at work. Before sending a long email, try stating the main point in two sentences that a friend outside your field would understand. If you can't, keep thinking. If you can, cut the rest.