The screw

You’ve been out of work for a while, unemployed because of layoffs. Your wife is getting on your last nerve, pressuring you to do something productive, maybe fix the broken slats in the fence, or set up the vegetable garden she’s been asking for since Desert Storm…anything that shows a bit of initiative, maybe impressing the neighbors. You know, keeping up with the Joneses thing.

So, she finds this prefab gazebo at the home improvement store; excited by the sales pitch of a quick and easy install, she says, “Even you can do this, hon! The sales guy said it is a very quick and easy assembly.” Despite being a thinking kind of man, rather than a hands-on, can build anything kind of guy, like every husband on your block, you go ahead and purchase the gazebo.

After assembling the gazebo, you notice an extra screw in the plastic bag that held the other screws. You check and recheck the assembly directions and screw holes several times. Nothing seems to be amiss. Every screw is screwed into a screw hole, except for this extra screw.

What is with the extra screw? you think to yourself.

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Ineffable mysteries

“Things do not change; we change.”
~Henry David Thoreau

We have a long-standing habit of rewriting the mysteries of life into something more tangible or poetic, using language such as right, wrong, moral, immoral, sane, crazy, healthy, sick, beautiful, ugly, normal, abnormal, love, hate, God, Satan, fate, karma, etc. A form of language assisted mental trickery, creating a permanent rift between what we choose to believe and the ever present mysteries within and around us.

Despite 300,000+ years of intellectual gains and refinement as Homo sapiens, it is possible, if not probable, that we’ve not become any more conscious of the full breadth of inner and outer forces that create and direct human behavior and our surroundings. No doubt, we’ve become more skilled at articulating and interpreting old patterns through our literal and literary narratives—scientific, academic, poetic, or otherwise—and casting those off into the world as if they are accurate reflections of truth and reality. However, these may be little more than creative variations on ancient, obscure themes, rather than any gain in knowledge or awareness of whatever pulls the strings.

The archetypal trickster in myths, literature, psychology, politics, and religion tempts us to take one bite after another of the proverbial smart food, convincing us that we can be as knowledgeable and powerful as the gods who created us. However, the irony is that—in all likelihood—we will never fully grasp the ancient, ineffable mysteries that remain constant and resistant to full disclosure and our meddling.

Our stories

“There are the stories we tell ourselves, and the stories we tell others. Some of them may even be true. But what are the stories which are storying their way through our daily lives and of which we are mostly if not wholly unaware?”
~James Hollis

The three stories:

1) The same old story that you assume is happening again. In reality or imagination, this is the all too familiar theme or pattern that seems to follow you like a stalker, recycling itself over and over, chapter after chapter, from cradle to grave. You whine and complain about its apparent return, playing its victim at times, but it is your Old Faithful, always reliable as an excuse or crutch when all else fails in your life.

2) The story of fulfillment and happy endings that you wish were happening. This is your version of the healing, heroic, romantic journey that you’ve dreamed about from childhood onward. The story evolves with the changing times and circumstances, but remains true to its original theme. You dream of it, hope for it, and search for it, but assume the low probability of its fruition.

3) The real story that is actually happening or unfolding throughout your life: A convoluted plot with characters and themes that appear, disappear, and sometimes reappear again, often without any apparent rhyme or reason. Creating one’s personal story from this bigger, more chaotic story, is a challenge without end, as the real world is in constant flux, without loyalty to what we’d like to believe about it.

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Sudden change

“Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.”
~ Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

People and situations may seem to change in a moment’s time. However, more often than not, subtle changes were already occurring over a much longer period of time, slowly gaining momentum towards a final dramatic shift. These subtle changes often go unnoticed by us, until finally crossing a threshold and turning our world upside down within a moment’s time.

The great puzzle

“There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.”
~ Douglas Adams

The belief that we can ever know the purpose of the universe – the totality of it all – is human arrogance. Nothing ever disappears or is replaced, other than our dead-end ideas. The purpose of the universe, of a single life itself, is like an endless spiral of mysteries; an infinity of oddly shaped pieces awaiting our exploration and placement, some of which elude any reasonable fit to anything else. The puzzle of existence remains unfinished.