the cynic and the mystery

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What are friends for if not to bring anyone up short with some passing observation ... something that creates a pause and a little reflection?

This morning I had a nice note from a friend who is (against all odds, I want to say) reading a book I put together in 2007. The book consists of odds and ends loosely held together by an interest in Zen Buddhism. I did update the electronic version of the book a couple of years after publication of the paper version, but never had the money to update the paper version. The entire exercise is in the past for me -- sort of like remembering an accomplishment or failure of any kind -- but for my now-reading friend, it was not the same.

She wrote: "You seem more cynical now than then, like your life used to hold more mystery for you."

"Cynical" stopped me for a moment and since I am not very good at seeing my own proclivities, I wondered if what she said were true and, if so, did that truth require some revision? I don't like cynicism much but, who knows, maybe crabby simplicities had taken the helm. I do like "mystery" and would miss its company if it departed.

I wrote back in part, "it's more like less mystery and hence more mystery."

Did you ever hear someone wax rhapsodic about the birth of a child? "It's a blessing," they may say, or, "it's a mystery." And sure enough, it's a mind-blower for anyone who examines it a little. I've got three kids, so I claim to speak from some experience. On the one hand, the birth of a child is as plain as peanut butter -- scientifically and psychologically open to explanation. On the other hand, "how the hell did that happen?!" Really, it's a mystery ... and I am not suggesting it is necessary to run around praising one god or another.

And so it was for me when writing the bits and pieces of the book -- taking the ordinary and digging down a little to the gob-stopping mystery. I love stories and love telling them, so I was a pig in shit. Give me a topic, any topic at all, and I could (and probably still can) winkle out or expose its gob-stopping potential ... its mystery ... in ways that others might find savory. It was important to me to do precisely that in the book ... make it savory for others. That's what books are for, right?

Mystery ... on the one hand it can't be solved and on the other hand there is a ferocious longing to do just that ... solve it. 

Sometimes it makes me laugh to think of the Jews' use of the Tetragrammaton, the unpronounceable four letters (sometimes rendered as YHWH) that represent a god whose name and being cannot be penetrated ... "cannot be penetrated" and yet here is a tradition that seeks to penetrate the impenetrable with something as useless as the Tetragrammaton. (No offense to the Jews here: I am just picking an example and since I am just another dumb goy ... well, let us forgive the nitwits.)

The Irish playwright, George Bernard Shaw was once informed that a particular woman had uttered the words, "I accept the universe." To which Shaw retorted wryly and aptly, "She damned well better!"

God is a mystery. Children are a mystery. The universe is a mystery.  Pick your poison and it is a mystery ... seriously. And one of the interesting characteristics of a mystery is that no solution ever entirely eradicates the mystery of the one who conjures a mystery. 

But what happens when anyone simply leaves mysteries to their own devices? Not ignores ... just leaves them to their own devices? The sky is blue ... it's a mystery ... and the sky is still blue. Does a mystery see itself as a mystery? If not, where do I get off seeing it that way? It's not a matter of good or bad, intelligent or stupid ... but honestly, where do I get off enjoying myself at the expense of a mystery? Enjoyment is fun, but the question remains, is it true?

I wonder if it is cynical to refrain from dancing with the others -- the mysteries -- that posit such a lot of fun.

Dance or don't dance -- your life, your choice.

Obviously I don't have much of a point to make here.

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