Question: If you could have one superpower, what would it be?
The ability to fly? Possess super-strength? To be invisible?
…want to know mine?
Answer: To know all things.
The Mystery Game
What exactly is the mystery game?
It is a game of not knowing the things you’d like to know.
Who is the love of my life? On what exact date will I die? What will I die from?
The list goes on and on…
Wouldn’t it be nice to know? To have a cheat sheet, a cheat code, to this mystery game of life.
That is, of course, assuming you’d like to know the answers to such questions.
If not, it is just as well, then.
“Ignorance is bliss,” or so, the saying goes.
Although, I’ve also heard another saying that goes something like…
“The truth shall set you free.”
The red pill or the blue pill — which is it?
Would you rather stay in the confines of blissful ignorance, never knowing what mysteries lie beyond?
Or…
Would you pick up a lantern, step foot out into the darkness and illuminate the mysteries that lie in wait?
Just imagine starting out with nothing but total darkness completely surrounding you.
What a terrifying thought.
The good thing is those who have arrived before you have already mapped out the shadows.
The fruits of their labor remain rich in the information passed on to you through school, their inventions and contraptions of marvelous design at work even today and the artifacts bequeathed to us all by those transcendent pioneers.
In the mystery game, knowledge is your map in the dark.
The question is: is that “knowledge” reliable?
“Truth”
Can you trust what you do not know?
Is it safe to put your faith in something, which, you yourself have not experienced or can ever experience?
Touching the surface of the moon, what really happened that night between those two people, did my boss really tell me the real reason why my company fired me?
Wouldn’t you like to know.
Tell me, what is “actuality?”
…is it not the actual state of things?
Things as they really are.
No b.s.
What is “truth,” then?
Is it not the human perception of actuality?
When someone says, “my truth,” is that person not referring to one’s perception of actuality?
As human beings we can only “see” so far; we are not God or some other all-knowing being.
If we were, we wouldn’t need the scientific method, cross-examination and critical thinking; we would already know, just like breathing — something we wouldn’t need to actively ponder.
The most we can do as humans, smart as we are, is be curious about actuality, investigate it as thoroughly as we can with the best means that we possess and still doubt what we find.
The Socratic method.
Have you heard of it?
It comes from one of the most famous philosophers in all of recorded human history, Socrates.
An ancient philosopher who daringly played this mystery game.
The Socratic method is perhaps his crowning achievement, and this is what it entails…
Doubt your assumptions.
In other words, set your biases, allegiances and experiences aside, and you will become that much closer to seeing actuality behind such veils.
Reality and actuality are not the same.
Want to know the difference?
…you do?
Reality is the perceived appearance of actuality.
There is the observable universe, or more commonly known as “reality,” the human beings that perceive reality and name such perceptions, “truth,” and actuality, the actual state of things behind the veils of “reality” and “truth.”
The difference between the three are the mysteries that separate each layer that, collectively, constitute “totality,” the total state of things.
That is the mystery game.
Closing the gap between each layer in order to know all things.
…will we ever be able to achieve that?
Perhaps, perhaps not.
Many people did once believe the Earth was flat, that the celestial beings revolved around the Earth and the Star Wars sequels were going to be better than the original trilogy.
Who’s to say you can’t try and light another step in the shadows of mystery?
This game isn’t for everyone, but everyone is in it.
Does that person like me? Does that person hate me? Will I make it to where I want to go?
Wouldn’t you like to know.
To know all things.
That is the superpower I wish I had.
It’d save me the time spent reading, watching, thinking…all to devour knowledge of this game.
What I do know, though, is that this game sure can be fun a lot of the time.
…and the other times?
Me just wishing I could see past the veils.
…so what do I do?
Keep playing the game.
Afterword
My dear readers,
Thank you for reading this far. It is always a pleasure to have you stop by and read my work and an even more satisfying feeling just to be able to share what’s on my mind with any of you.
This game sure is an interesting one, isn’t it? Oh, how badly I want to know anything and everything, all things.
Curiosity for curiosity’s sake.
Well, if there’s anything that I’ve learned, it’s this: the more I learn, the more I am at peace.
Kind of like preparing a meal with a dozen ingredients instead of only two — you get to see the bigger and deeper picture to what’s possible — and it gives hope.
Until next time my friends,
J.D.
