Art + the Unknown

I remember the first time I heard this song. It came out in ‘85, so I might have been 3 or 4. I was left in a vehicle by myself in a parking lot, and I heard it playing on the radio. I listened to the words and analyzed them. When I heard them sing, “Everybody wants to rule the world,” I pictured everyone walking around wearing crowns on their heads.

Even at such a young age, that song really moved me. The mood was so surreal and intoxicating. I lost myself in it. I wished it would never end. It was comforting.

I’ve always loved music, guys, and I’ve always been a little deep for my age.

I’ve always been enamored with things like the beginning and the end of the universe |both physically and in time|. I tried to find an exact method for determining the exact ‘truth’. I’d think, “Okay, so I believe that what is proven by science is probably mostly true, as in replicated experiments are enough to convince me of most of it, although sometimes it does prove wrong, but at a small rate. So, science is truth |for the most part|, check. BUT…"

What about all of this other stuff? What about the obvious experiences, by myself and by others, where we bump right into something unexplainable by any scientific means? We’ve all had these experiences at one point or another. Maybe it’s that moment when you truly knew you believed in God, not because someone else told you to, but because you had a personal experience that was insanely improbable, but only you |and God| would ever understand the personal significance of the experience to you.

Maybe it was a dream you had that you then experienced in waking life. Perhaps, it was an uncanny moment of Deja Vu that you could never brush off. Maybe a moment in your life caused you to believe in ghosts, demons, aliens… anything that would otherwise be categorized as unknown, paranormal, spiritual, new age, quack science, or psychotic. Those things.

I eventually figured out that the truth is somewhere in between those two things: the things that science has proven + the things that my experiences have proven.

The thing is, science isn’t even close to being done. We just got our first pic of a black hole, and it doesn’t even portray a billionth of the magnificence of these objects. It’s a blob of orange light. Will there ever be a day when artists can somehow paint black holes on a canvas exactly the way that we KNOW they look?

That will be awesome.

But for now, guys, we are idiots. Even the smartest among us, no offense, we are just humans.

How much have we advanced in just the last hundred years? If we can survive our own pettiness + greed, what could we learn in 1000 more years??? Our science is still small. There is much, much more to learn + prove.

SOOO….

What about the other stuff? The stuff that science isn’t even sniffing out yet? Yeah, science is finally coming around to validating the spiritual experience enough to do brain imaging + studies analyzing the physical and psychological effects of various spiritual practices. Even the authority of shamans within tribes is becoming validated by studies on the benfificial effects of psychoactive hallucinogens on traumatic experience. This research has been going on for decades + has accumulated.

Other related human experiences are happening all over the planet + have been happening as long as we’ve been here.

Guys, there is more to life than this. Getting educated, going to work, raising a family, shopping, errands…

There is more than that.

How much more, I can’t say. I just know that the truth of our reality is somewhere in between this + what we imagine in our wildest dreams.

Image by David Zydd from Pixabay