So, what is this?
It’s Complicated is a newsletter about the systems beneath the surface: the myths we inherit, the technologies we build, the stories we tell, the minds we misunderstand, and the assumptions we mistake for reality.
A lot of media skims across important topics, offering glib, oversimplified takes without exploring the deeper context or nuance of why things are the way they are. That’s what I’m trying to provide here: the why. I have this cockeyed idea that if people understand the context and reasoning behind something, they’ll understand it better—and maybe even see the world differently.
I’m also writing a connected body of speculative fiction—science fantasy, contemporary thrillers, cryptid horror—that grows out of the same obsession: what happens when the explanation is stranger, more human, and more consequential than the legend?
Who am I?
I’m Jeff Kirvin. Long ago, lost in the mists of the internet, I was a tech blogger and podcaster focusing mostly on mobile technology for writers. Along the way, I discovered I have a knack for explaining complex topics in ways anyone can understand.
Some of that comes from being autistic; some of it comes from being a lifelong storyteller. Either way, I’ve always been drawn to the deeper structure underneath things.
Isn’t the title of this newsletter just a rip-off of “The Problem with Jon Stewart”?
Quiet, you.
The ambiguity of the gag was too funny to pass up, but the reason it works is that I’m trying to do something adjacent to Stewart’s Apple TV+ show: provide context and nuance around topics that are usually oversimplified.
Unlike Stewart, I’m not going to lean on the lazy crutch of bothsidesism and tell you that everyone is wrong and everything is doomed, because I am not a cynic. Except about Jon Stewart.
Why this exists
If surface explanations leave you wanting more—if you keep asking what context got left out, what incentives are shaping the story, what structure is hiding underneath the obvious answer—then maybe we’re on the same wavelength.
Life is messy, nuanced, and rarely simple.
That’s where I come in: not to make the messy simple, but to make it legible. After all, it’s complicated.
Why subscribe?
Subscribe if you want essays about technology, politics, neurodivergence, storytelling, myth, science, and the hidden systems underneath the obvious answers.
Some posts will be practical. Some will be personal. Some will be about fiction, including the speculative novels I’m writing. All of them will be trying to make something complicated a little more legible without sanding off the interesting parts.
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