shirking extraterrestrial duties

A small, warming flame of delight dances in my mind this morning: God bless the Tasmanian police!

Oooooooeeeeeeeooooooooo!

Yesterday, a friend sent along a small article about a mysterious light from the sky that ignited a patch of fire on the ground in a Hobart suburb. No one was hurt, firefighters doused the flame, and investigators looked unsuccessfully for a cause on which to blame the fire. They couldn't find a satisfactory explanation and ...

The Fire Service says it will not investigate further.

Some may suspect that Tasmania is shirking its extraterrestrial duties. Others may say that in the grand scheme of things -- bloodshed in Syria, famine in Africa, U.S. political idiocies, melting ice caps, the vileness of racism or clerical abuse of young and old parishioners -- a bit of burned grassland is hardly something to write home about.

What I admire in a small and warming way is the willingness to act on the factual premise of "I don't know." No lollygagging about poking and probing and dissecting and investigating in an effort to reverse the tide of facts ... the tide of "I don't know."

Nor do Tasmanian investigators seem to be dwelling, like some Korean Buddhist, on something as confounding and delighting and 'knowing' as "don't-know mind."

Rather, the story as told seems to depict an easy-going recognition that not-knowing is part of life and it's not something anyone would want to get their knickers in a twist about. Like an old and comfortable pair of slippers that wait quietly in the closet, it's just the way things are and things as they are have a slightly wonderful quality. No biggie ... just cozy.

Anyone assessing the personal terrain might be willing to admit that what s/he doesn't know vastly exceeds what s/he does. Mostly, this recognition is kept warming on some back burner as life's efforts play out ... trying to know more, understand better, preserve and protect and enlarge this personal homestead. No kidding -- wouldn't it be kool if there were extraterrestrials; wouldn't it be kool if I understood auto mechanics; wouldn't it be kool if I found the "God particle;" wouldn't it be kool if I could make duck à l'orange; wouldn't it be kool if I could hit a bulls-eye at 1,000 yards; wouldn't it be kool ... to know any number of things? Yes, it would be kool.

But why should it be somehow un-kool not to know when the facts make it overwhelmingly clear that no matter how much I know, still, what I don't know will far outstrip that collection?

The small delight Tasmanian investigators laid at my feet this morning does not mean I want to run around promoting a know-nothing ignorance or elevating the self-serving bias of (perhaps) the Ku Klux Klan or creating some oozy-goozy, overarching deity in whom all things are known. The delight seemed to rest in the recognition that to not-know could be every bit as much fun and informative and in conformance with the facts ...

Relax -- you know.
Relax -- you don't know.

It's the relaxation part that counts, isn't it?