invisible mystery

There is a shield up all around me here. It is a very comfortable shield. I am very used to it. This shield blocks the world around me from truly being felt, truly being experienced and understood. Or, put another way, it makes the world too easily understood. It is, of course, one of the main contributing factors to sanity in life, but it is also one of the main contributing factors to certain kinds of ignorance. I think that I am not alone in having this shield. I think that is it nearly universal.

I am convinced that in life the things that seem least mysterious are actually the things that hold the most mystery. When life seems most uninteresting, empty, thoughtless, senseless, questionless is precisely when you are now being duped. It is precisely when your shield is up and blocking the world from your potentially sensitive eyes. As Leia says, "Luke, it's a trap."

Sometimes when your shield comes down you begin to see again all that you had been blocking. It is like when you finally realize how much you care for a group of people, how much you feel you will miss them; how much they mean to you. But it is more than that. It is recognizing the intricacies of the workings of life that surround you at every moment. Even in a quiet, empty, all-white room there is plenty of movement and interest not only of that very simple space but of yourself. Your complex bodily workings and the mind you carry with you. The intricacies of memories you hold and the patterns on your fingertips and throughout your body (like trees or geological formations).

But the shield does not only protect from the knowledge of the good, it also protects from the knowledge of the bad. It is a protecting force and does plenty of good. It means that you may function, that you may cook, that you may clean, that you may live in peace. For a too-active mind is a too-active mind. A too-aware person is, well, insane. So the shield will stay up.

I meant to say something about how technology contributes to this shield by its offering a sort of analog to it. Like the shield the technological device hides away the many ways in which it functions. We use the digital camera to take the picture, put it on our computers, and order prints online but we do this all, 99% of the time, without the knowledge/awareness of what is really happening within the gadgets and ciruitry. Of course it's just a collection of 1s and 0s but that is a vast oversimplification. The ability to mindlessly utilize hundreds of technologies everyday highlights just how comfortable we are with our constant unawarenesses. Contemporary Japanese culture is bathed in these daily technologies making life so seemingly unmysterious, and yet, in truth, so much more mysterious.

And yet what lurks within these mysteries? Potentially the simplest of answers however complex in their overwhelming vastness. Of course I do not think these ideas are original; but they may be to me and they may be to you, so I am content.

What is the mystery? What is the simple force behind every moment in every space? What makes the flowers grow and the leaves fall down to the ground? How constant is life? Where are we? It's nice to live in a world of unanswered questions.