Don’t Lose the Mystery.

“Evolution is a change from a nohowish, untalkaboutable all-alikeness, to a somehowish and ingeneral-talkaboutable, not-all-alikeness, but continuous somethingelsification and stick-togetherness.” — William James

In the final judgement, at the end of all roads of inquiry, no one really knows what’s going on here… 

As you venture into the outcomes of quantum physics, you’re confronted with far more questions than answers. Whatever ‘reality’ is becomes more fluid than concrete.

You live inside this Mystery.

Or, perhaps more accurately: "you" "live" "inside" "this" "mystery". 

Because who the hell knows what any of that actually means? When you drill down deep, the ground of intelligibility crumbles beneath you, and you find yourself in freefall through the Great Somethingness. 

Humanity has been in this freefall since the moment Life began.

It’s easy to get caught up in Certainty. Certainty is a fantastic coping mechanism when staring down the barrel of the Almighty Impenetrable.

But when you investigate the nature of your experience (the only thing you ever really 'have'), you realize you still have no idea what ‘certainty’ even is.

Who is certain? Of what? What exactly is certainty? What, specifically, does that word refer to in reality? What is reality? Where is it? How is it? Why is it? What!?

A friend of mine was describing his experiences coming out of mind-bending N,N-DMT experiences… left with the disorienting question: 

“What even is curiosity?”

Words give you an illusory sense of control and grounding.

“Ah yes, that’s a tree.”

What? Are you sure? Quantum physics starkly disagrees that any single, isolated, individual object exists in any lasting capacity to be pointed at and named a tree. The Buddhists, too. 

A mysterious, generative, dynamic, emergent, alive, collectively-hallucinated mirage with apparent sensory correlates...

But, my fellow traveller, do not despair. For we have missed something important in our exploration... 

Who told you Mystery was a bad thing? Who told you that you had to relate to uncertainty negatively? Why did you believe them?

Every moment of your life is laced with Mystery.

Juicy, sexy, luscious mystery.

Mystery upon mystery. As the Tao Te Ching says, “Dark enigma deep within dark enigma / gateway of all mystery.”

"Please, you who try to fathom dark-enigma clear through,
don’t pass your days and nights in vain."
— Shitou

This is one of the reasons traditional Chinese and Taoist landscape paintings are always incomplete.

They never attempt to 'capture' the full landscape in immaculate detail, because the details are always in flux. Never permanent.

There exists no fixed, formed, concrete reality to be captured in painting to begin with.

The ancient Artist-Intellectuals didn't leave open, cloudy, foggy, unfinished spaces in their paintings because they were amateurs. Precisely the opposite.

They were Masters of the Mystery, and they captured its essence in their paintings.

Vague generalities, loose feelings, hints of somethingness, fleeting depictions of a Mysterious Entity in dynamic change.

Agonizingly beautiful. Profoundly mysterious. Completely ungraspable.

It appears that we can interact with this Great Mystery in some way. That we are never truly separate from it. How fun! What an opportunity.

What a true and final freedom.

Don’t lose the Mystery…
EB.