In an age of instant information, the text argues for the value of embracing mystery and the feeling of not knowing, suggesting that true understanding and wonder lie in acknowledging the vastness of what remains unknown.
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We have just as many questions as we did a thousand years ago.
But now the answers are never far away.
Turn on a screen and you’re drowning in answers.
Right or wrong—there they are.
So that feeling of not knowing, of having to wonder,
only lasts for a few seconds. And then you carry on with your day,
following the optimal route to the optimal places,
which leaves you little else to do but mutter to yourself,
“I know, I know, I know.”
It makes you want to slow down a little bit,
and hold on to the question, just to see where it takes you.
Yráth.
There’s some beauty left in mystery.
In the feeling of not knowing.
Letting strangers be strange.
Letting the wilderness be wild.
You might think of it as putting on blinders but really it’s a loosening of focus,
seeing clearly how distorted and murky,
how unknowable the world is.
It’s worth taking a step back once in a while,
to soak in that feeling of lostness,
and remind yourself how little we really know.
If you look past the headlines, our view of reality is not in high definition.
We don’t really know how electricity works,
what gravity is,
or virtually anything about time.
We have no idea what our universe is made of.
The vast majority is some dark substance we’re not even sure how to measure.
We can’t even count how many planets are in our own solar system,
because we’re unable to see that far out.
We mapped the world long ago,
but still haven’t touched the third dimension:
the ocean depths,
still dark and uncharted,
filled with alien creatures we don’t even know exist.
Most living species have yet to be given a name.
There are probably a handful in your own back yard
that are completely unknown to science.
We’re not really sure how to tell whether something is alive.
Or whether a living thing is conscious.
We still don’t know why we sleep,
why we dream,
why we pray.
We don’t need to go looking for some lost world,
wild and unexplored.
We already live there.
We just prefer not to see it that way,
feeling safe inside our little bubble of certainty.
But in truth,
the universe is still a wide open question,
growing wider with each passing moment.
Someday we may look back and realize we were still in the Dark Ages.
Maybe we should count ourselves lucky we were born so early in history,
back when it was still possible to go outside and savor a moment of in-betweenness,
in these lingering pools of mystery, where there are no answers.
Where all you can do is wait and watch
hoping for a glimmer of something real,
turning in the deep.
You have no idea what’s going to happen, if anything happens at all.
So you might as well sit back,
and thank the gods it’s still possible to get lost in the middle of nowhere,
humming softly to yourself,
“I don’t know…I don’t know…I don’t know...”
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