The world has become too explainable, too compartmentalized, too normalized. Mystery and wonder are scrubbed from every corner, sanitized, and explained. And yet our minds are desperate for wonder and mystery. Our evolutionary hardware remains mired in a prehistoric past, built for a time when our only explanations for the world around us were supernatural, filled with mystery. We chafe against the unnatural glow of explanation, and seek subconsciously to return to this world of mystery. This, I think, explains the reason for the random upsurge in cult activity, as well as our recent brush with COVID Armageddon, a purely psychological phenomenon, the product of millions of imaginations rushing in to accept and assist with a new Dark Age. Not only is there too little mystery left for us to consume, our scientific advances have uncovered the unsettling strangeness of what appears to be our total isolation in the known universe. Over a century ago, on the cusp of so many scientific revolutions, was there a sense of hope that new wonders would soon be uncovered by the scientific community? There must have been. The promise of discovery ignites the imagination, in hopes, not of some new answer, but the uncovering of another, deeper mystery. Our greatest fear may be that the puzzle has been solved without the catharsis of revelation. We are the animal that strives for meaning, but in our quest for meaning we drastically reduce the odds that we will achieve it.
