Another year has been and gone, and for me that means another year of unanswerable questions, and mysterious life experiences.

There is perhaps no better time to reflect than the end of a year. Our mind is set to our own calender, and the traditions of the holiday season can bring a sense of mild nostalgia, as we take a glance back at what was, and look ahead to the new possibilities that lay in the year ahead.

I don’t really set myself strict new years resolutions. I feel like I work enough to resolve myself throughout the year, and so maybe the holidays should be a time for me to let go a bit. Having said that I have been projecting an image of myself into the future recently. I have decided that it might be time to take flight with my laptop; to become a digital nomad, as it were.

I have also reflected on my year somewhat, and have decided to share some of my funnier thoughts with you. I won’t make you drowsy with my life story, but will try to infuse my year of experience into a series of unanswerable questions, for your pleasure, and for my love of the fluidity of mystery; which I value over the boring solid answers of life.

(Warning… contains mystery and potentially unanswerable questions. Do not read if you need an answer right now. Disappointment awaits. Not recommended for anyone.)

Without further ado, welcome to the magical mystery tour:

 

Unanswerable Question 1: How Deep Is The Rabbit Hole, Really?

Okay, so I might not be the first person to have asked this: the first was Alice, who did a sublime job of managing not only to go pretty deep down the rabbit hole, but also to come back around as if it was all a dream.

For most of my life I was searching for mystery, but this year it slapped me so hard around the face that I had to ask myself whether I was really ready to go that deep without a candle. There is no light at points in that dark rabbit hole, and I had to scramble back up to properly prepare. This year I experienced a dark night of the soul.

For those who are struggling with the over-extended metaphor; I refer to the mysteries of life; the depths of consciousness; my journey into the unknown to salvage some sense of spiritual identity, or communion with something higher than myself.

All I can say is that there is a lot higher than “myself” and that there are literally no limits to what can/is occurring on a daily basis when consciousness is unadulterated, and unrestricted.

Let me tell you please, though I cannot adequately describe its depths, the rabbit hole is very, very deep, and sometimes the answers are not as black and white as you want to think they are. Be well prepared, with abundant love, if you really want to know what’s down there.

Unanswerable Question 2: What Does Unconditional Love Mean?

This year I might have experienced what the Buddhists call “unconditional love,” though alas I confess, conditions slip in here and there, and like most glimpses this was to be a temporary enlightenment.

The experience felt like a tribal consciousness that expanded to a global consciousness. You understand every person to be a piece of the puzzle, and to have a role and a place; within a family, a tribe, a globe, a universe. Everyone is uniquely beautiful and connected to each other intimately.

Beyond the seven degrees of separation, this is not just about who knows who. We are inseparable on a quantum level. We are made of the same stuff. The cells in our body group to form the animate matter that you call the self. Like the cells in your body, each one of us is a cell to the collective consciousness.

What is the collective consciousness? I don’t know, I guess it could be the combination of our individual consciousness, or our individual consciousness could be fragmentations of the collective, it really depends which way you look at it. Recognizing the collective on an experiential level is the closest I have been to unconditional love: all of humanity are your brothers and sisters.

Only a truly open and non-judgmental heart is capable of unconditional love. We are all capable of it at times, and we are all not capable of it at times.

 

Unanswerable Question 3: What Does Personal Love Mean?

I must stress that I do not wish to pursued anyone to take any other approach to relationships than their own; no two lovers are the same, and each relationship is a strong chemical and metaphysical bond that has its own snap, crackle, and pop. But this year I was faced with serious strain on my personal love, and had to restructure my approach to it.

No sob stories here, but the question I had to ask myself was “is it really love to hold on to someone, or is it true love to let go?” I don’t think there is an answer to this question. Obviously it all depends. In my case we had come to damage each other, and restrict each other, where that was never our intention. It was time to let go. Now I don’t believe that love is an attachment or a need. Real love is to want what is best for the other person, as well as yourself.

 

Unanswerable Question 4: What Does It Mean To Be An Individual, And Be Part Of A Collective?

You may have faced this dilemma yourself at some point, perhaps just while relaxing with friends. How do you be an individual, while being a part of the collective. Solving this duality is the key, I believe, to successful relationships, and to successful functioning within a family, social setting, and tribe. Although there are no clear answers to this (notice any patterns in this article yet?) there is actually a solution to this one, especially easy for musicians among us to understand.

Imagine yourself playing your own instrument with a group of other people who are playing different instruments. You are jamming together, and you can have individual input, but you are also responsive to the other players, and also to the creative “spirit” that is in the air, so to speak. Between you all you make harmonic music, though you yourself have a creative input that expresses your individuality, at least in relation to the whole.

It is great to know yourself as an individual, and to strengthen your character; that is the equivalent to practicing your own instrument in your own style. To understand the collective we need the other components too; responsiveness to the whole, adaptability, harmonics.

Unanswerable Question 5: Is There Anything That Is Not A Construct?

Don’t get me wrong here. I know we need certain social constructs. I am glad we have chosen to subdue our animal instincts in favor of a safer and more pleasant society, where mutual rules help us to focus on something more than constantly defending ourself. But the more I dig into the world of social constructs, the more I realize that most of how we behave, and even how we think, is socially constructed. Does that scare you a little? That your thoughts and behaviors might not be our own making?

It makes me want to take back control. To be able to overcome certain unwritten rules; the ones that stop me from dancing in the street on a Tuesday afternoon; the ones that tell me that if I can write then I can’t draw; that I need someone else to fix my house because I can’t do it; the ones that tell me I can’t go here, there, or anywhere, and that I should really just work for the machine and spend my spare time watching mellow-dramatic soap operas about families that reflect the disfunction of my own.

They are the social constructs I want to overcome.

What about the constructs that tell us that it is fine to support companies that cause huge economic imbalance in the world? Like a funky logo is enough to make up for decades of abuse of power! What about the constructs that keep us so “connected” to each other via constant communication on disgustingly overvalued social media tools? What about the social constructs that will see us live in a world of drones, just because they are introduced as a toy?

A whole series is soon to come on social conditioning and how to unwire it, so I will spare you the anguish for now.

 

Unanswerable Question 6: Do We Have Freewill?

This is not exactly a new debate either, but hey ho, it is one of the unanswerable questions that repeatedly cropped up during my last year of life experiences. I think many people would prefer to think they have freewill, but is this really the case?

I consider myself someone who is largely in control of life, and it was only while in a two-month heightened state of awareness that I noticed that this might not be the case, and that I was merely responding to situations that were coming my way. Even my responses, I would notice, tended to be similar and result in a similar outcome. Was this the motions of Karma itself I was noticing? Are my own limitations and current life lessons continually tested in varying forms until I can find a solution that changes something?

Free will or determinism? I really couldn’t give you a straight answer to that one. Either way it is always best to remain positive. This is something that we can try to do not matter what.

 

Unanswerable Question 7: Is “Maybe” The Best Answer We Have?

Hard skeptics, religious dogmatics, and “science” minded folk, lay your scrupulous eyes on the above question and let it penetrate your being for long enough to realize that no one has the answer. You don’t have a clue what’s going on! If you think you know everything about life, then that is only because you read too much trash on the internet, and take it as being true. Either that or you watch the news too much, or you rely too heavily on single scientific studies and take them as being immense meta-studies that carry weight as scientific evidence.

The nervous system makes an interpretation of the world every day. You and I make different interpretations. Therefore my reality and your reality are not only different; they are also probably conflicting, yet both equally valid. If you regularly meet people who are different to you then you will know this. If you have an open mind and can experience life through different perspectives then you will know this… You will know that you do not know anything.

If you have reached this most humbling conclusion, then you are at the quantum unit of consciousness. You work in ifs, buts, and maybes. You work on yes, and no, and yes-no, and maybe. You are totally crazy and totally intelligent at the same time. Welcome to quantum realities, where you never have to settle for bashing your head against a solid brick wall of self imposed limitations! Reality might be plural, don’t you know? Therefore “maybe” might be the best that we have.

Unanswerable Question 8: Is The Mystery Greater Than The Answer?

I’ll let you decide for yourself. If you want “the answer” then simply find a singular solution; scientific, religious, or otherwise. If you want mystery then all you have to do is live in the less confining world of maybes. Personally I find unanswerable questions much more stimulating, both in conceptualization, and in life experience.

 

Ahh, rejoice, and let us welcome another year of not knowing the exact answer to all of life’s mysteries. Happy New Year!