In our everyday life, most things are generally normal and
routine. A bird, a tree, a city block, a drive home from work, a
meal, a load of laundry, a night of sleep, and so on. After a
certain age of adolescence, most things begin to fall into this
category of averageness or tediousness. This can, for obvious
reasons, pose problems on our experience of life. A frequent
sense of boredom and monotony. Science, religions, and philosophies often
work to provide us with answers and clarity about the universe and our existence within
it. We seek to learn about what we, as a collective species, know about ourselves and this reality
in order to aid our experience it. This can be helpful, of course, but perhaps an equally
valuable and often neglected source of wisdom, joy, and vitality can be found not in what
we know, but in what we don't know. A deep contemplation and assimilation of the unknown
into our daily life. 19th century writer Henry David Thoreau writes, “My desire for knowledge
is intermittent; but my desire to commune with the spirit of the universe, to be intoxicated
with the fumes, call it, of that divine nectar, to bear my head through atmospheres and over
heights unknown to my feet, is perennial and constant.” Which is to say, the experience
and effects of concrete knowledge can be fleeting, but the wonder found in the spirit of the
unknown can be constant and enduring. With no more than a glance upward at a clear,
starry night sky, as we stare into the eyes of the incomprehensible
and infinite space above us,
we are likely to experience an overwhelming awareness of
how little we know and how little we are. The universe stares
back at us with it’s stark glare and reminds us how deeply strange
and unclear our life really is, even in the most simple and
normal. The great cosmologist, Carl Sagan said, “The Cosmos
is all that is or was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations
of the Cosmos stir us -- there is a tingling in the spine, a
catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, of
falling from a height.” This feeling of awe is immensely
liberating and provoking. It reminds us that we stand at
the crossroads of the infinite and finite. The everything and nothing.
The knowing and the unknowing.
In truth, no matter what we think we know, we are probably
wrong, and no matter what anyone else thinks they know, they are
probably wrong. At this point, no one, in any fundamental sense,
knows what’s going on. Nothing about this life is simple or
clear, and nothing down here on earth, including us, from the
perspective of the stars, matters all that much to anything
beyond itself. Paradoxically, in this, we find great opportunity
for wisdom, humility, exploration, and profound experience in
our life.
“Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it
doesn't matter. Explore the world. Nearly everything is really
interesting if you go into it deeply enough.” said renowned
theoretical physicist, Richard Feynman. In even the most common
and mundane, there is complexity and strangeness. We don’t even
know why we sleep or dream. We don’t know how most of our brain
works or what consciousness is. We don’t know if time is real in
any physical sense. We don’t know what gravity is or why it is.
We don’t know if there are infinite other universes or
dimensions around us right now. We don’t know why energy or
matter even came to be in the first place, or why it was
followed by a perfect sequence of colliding, combining,
exploding, and emerging all to put us here right now, able to
ask why. At the base of almost everything, the resulting
statement is, we don’t know. When we disregard this
unknowingness, we can easily become disinterested, uninspired, and
worn out of this life. We can put great stress on things that
perhaps don’t matter all that much, and neglect our experiences
and things that do. We can feel the pressure and anxiety
of chasing a perfection and certainty, which of course,
at this moment, do not exist.
Alternatively, the frequent consideration and acceptance of
the unknown within every moment and in everything can bring us
back down to our earthly innocence and curiosity, and open us up
to an appreciation for all things, people, and ideas.
We should look to the universe often, not solely for
answers, but for perspective. For a helpful adjustment and
aerial consideration of our daily life. Arguably, with this practice, the little things
in life become more exciting and striking. The mistakes
and the annoyances become less significant. The calm
becomes easier and the everyday activities of our life that we
so often view as wasteful and tedious reveal to be wonderfully
strange and curious parts of our existence that we should
perhaps make efforts to ponder and appreciate as often
as we can. As if to say, “I’d love to marvel at and
enjoy this work of art I’ve created.” The universe gave itself humanity. “Through
our eyes, the universe is perceiving itself. Through our ears, the universe is listening
to its harmonies. We are the witnesses through which the universe becomes conscious of its
glory, of its magnificence.” Said 20th century American-British philosopher, Alan Watts.
And what a shame it would be to waste this experience by denying said glory and magnificence
found in the unknown. In a clear, starry night sky, we see beauty.
Not because we know where all the stars came from or where
they will all go, but because we don’t. In the scope of the
bigger picture, the
only thing that seems to remain sizeable and relevant about us
is that we are here, able to look up to the stars any night we’d
like during our brief and fleeting exploration of this life, and
wonder why they are there. We must remember that the unknown is always
above, bellow, and beside us and, whenever we need it.