“It’s Complicated…”

To say something is ‘complicated’ isn’t much of a description because it tends to obscure rather than clarify.

Sure, some things are. If you are looking at a map of the Tokyo Metro or the inside of TV set, that’ll be your first reaction (unless you are a Metro employee of a TV engineer).

But complicatedness is not a quality of the thing we are looking at, it is an aspect of our understanding. When something seems complicated it is because of the way we are considering it, not because of the way it is. Where ignorance sees complication the trained eye sees information and detail.

Noticing that something seems complicated is also information, and it tells us that we need to examine the details, one at a time.