The Great Mystery

The Lakota used the term The Great Mystery to describe an all encompassing life force that pervaded all the living things and all the earth.  I have always liked that term because it implies that we will never fully know the reasons for things.  There will always be mystery to life.  Modern human culture often tries to find answers to everything.  Scientific advances are always breaking new frontiers.  Manipulating genetic coding, trying to create artificial intelligence, exploring the furthest reaches of space, ect.  These kinds of advances in human ingenuity and understanding have propelled our society forward and many times they spur on a sense of wonder.  But despite all this there is much left unexplained and unknown.  A hundred years ago the things we know and have at our disposal today would have seemed unfathomable.  The problems of today would also probably never cross anyone's mind as remotely possible a hundred years ago.  Who knows what a hundred years from now we will know and have and who knows what problems will face us.  

But perhaps just maybe life and the forces that govern it are supposed to be a great mystery.  Perhaps there are some things humans are not meant to know.  Perhaps there are some things humans are not meant to do.  Perhaps there are some places humans were not meant to go.  Perhaps instead we should trust the mystery of the universe.  

I always liked a line from the movie Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle where one of the characters says "left to it's own devices the universe tends to unfold as it should".  I think that is true.  The universe is believed to be about 12- 14 billion years old or perhaps older.  It's time scale would be inconceivable to us.  Like a fruit fly whose life span is 40-50 days would not be able to conceive of our life span.  So I believe even though it may not seem it the universe and everything in it will eventually unfold as it should.  We just have to play our parts and as a favorite television special of my youth used to say "let up a little on the wonder why and give your heart a try".  Ours is not to know but to walk and grow.  How the universe gets where it's going is a mystery perhaps meant for only it to know.