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"Complexity has to live somewhere. If you are lucky, it lives in well-defined places... You give it a place without trying to hide all of it. You create ways to manage it. You know where to go to meet it when you need it."

It is useful for complexity to be abstracted away when it would otherwise detract from or complicate the task at hand. Then there are times where you need to interact with the complexity directly. These tasks will be best served by having a well-defined place where you know you can meet the complexity.

Regarding abstractions, I once heard something along the lines of, "a good abstraction is one that allows you to safely make assumptions about how something will work." In other words, with a good abstraction you don't have to reconfirm a litany of details, but can, for standard scenarios, make reasonable assumptions that save you time and mental overhead.

Putting it all together, good abstractions allow for beneficial assumptions, but when those assumptions aren't going to hold up, we ought to have a well-defined place to go wrangle with the complexity.

I came across this article while reading The Essence of Successful Abstractions — Sympolymathesy, by Chris Krycho.