It's Complicated

I once had a friend who used the response, "it's complicated" when he was uncomfortable with a question asked of him. His other favorite phrase was " I don't do that" if he felt forced to act. Since he is no longer with us, so to speak, when I mean "dead", I shall adopt his two perfect cop-outs. In reference to some business I am roiled in these days, I feel like saying both of them. I am, in this transaction, the symbolic tiny ball that awaits entry into one of the vast mechanical fooleries that tinkerers love to build and play with. You know the kind of machine of which I speak. Those with lots of time to fiddle with bits of plastic and metal and springs and screws, construct complicated ramps and tubes and inclines to have the little ball go up, down, around and drop as it goes, according to the laws of physics, through its torturous series of movements as it makes its forced way to the exit. Gamers know this, because many games introduce such fripperies into their complex plots. The deal under which I am currently pressed is of my own doing, but it makes me feel like I am going through one of the ridiculous machines that I describe. The ball comes out the other end of the large construct exactly the same as it went in. Most business transactions involving contracts and leases and other paper signing gambits, now, are similar. What used to be uncomplicated business matters that could be executed over a shake of hands, have now become very complicated, time-consuming and expensive operations, with all sorts of personnel and paperwork,  plastered into them from start to finish. Why? We are a society that is paranoic. We are sue-happy and worry about what we say and do and think even if it offends, nor should,  anyone or anything. My name, for example, is one with a meaning where  I should be saying if a sterling modern citizen, when I have to tell it, "no offense meant". But, it's my name and why would I change it? The word is said to offend a certain element of our human race. Nonsense. My last name has been around for hundreds of years and until this era where everyone is checking up on everyone else visa vis the book titled 1984, it was perfectly acceptable. It's as one radio commentator spoke the other day, the younger generation has to learn how to protect itself against the future. So do I, a senior citizen, apparently. What? I thought the younger generation was looking forward to the future? How much of this sort of stress do we need? How many apologies and gob-smacking are actually going to fix anything that's wrong? Thanks, Gordon, for your appropriate today words: "I don't do that. It's complicated".