I am torn in my life. I live with technology whose veracity I question, yet encourage others to do the same. The decision to extend our use of technology isn't ours to make, I must consider, as we sweep forward on a still-rising tide of complexity embodied in the tools that we employ.

There appears little to be bothered about, you may reason. The decision is made. Complexity will not unwind itself as surely as time will not slip backward. Why torment yourself over something you have no control over?

Yet, I am uneasy.

My concern is this: we are shaping our lives with tools we do not understand.

The tool promises we need not understand it well, as it might perform it's task without need of revealing a larger nature. Yet indeed it often does. It fails us at times and we are left to wonder why we ever chose to employ such a thing, that we cannot reason with it and put it in order when it's larger nature is divulged chaotic.

All things are complex at some level, or so the physicists would argue. I would agree with them. I would also reason that much of the complexity can be described and mastered, and this is where I must make my point.

Computers, for that is what we are considering here, are basically quite simple devices made complex by obscuring the basic principles of their operation under layers of euphemism. The simplicity remains if you choose to look for it.

Where do you look? Everywhere.

You must look everywhere to get a broader perspective on what computers truly are, and what they do. If you look at one specific application you may understand it better, but not the whole tool. Look beyond the facade; overlook disparity as you seek out unity. You will soon see the whole that exists beyond the sum of the parts.

You will understand.