REFER TO GREY: Contemplations by Robert Greigos © 2007-2024

"Jake, do you ever wonder what else might be out there?"

"Out there? NO, I don't. What I think about is right here, right in front of me."

"But out there, we might find ... oh, I don't know ... maybe a different manner of looking at things, some way to explain all the mysteries, all those things we don't really understand but only think we understand."

"What mysteries? What things we don't understand. We understands plenty, more than I'd care to think about. Only mystery I sees is why you think there is one. Now come on fool, get your mind off wandering and back to work. This is what's important, right in front of you, not out there."

What is it that so severely limits some folk's curiosity, their desire to know more than they already know? How do they know what they think is "important" really is important? In fact, how have any of us come to know all the things we think we know? And, is any of that so called knowledge actually valid, real and true in some universal sense, or is it more of a limited specialized knowledge, useful, but only within our own tiny worlds of activity?

What, in fact, does lie beyond? And how, if ever, will we come to know it?

Then again, what of that fear some of us feel, the fear of possibly learning what we think we know might not be true? But then, are we really so unadaptable that we should be afraid? Or is the natural world actually a more welcoming and knowable place than we might imagine?

Culture is our collective knowledge. It is the sum of what we have learned while living within the natural world. It helps us to adapt, to grow, to prosper. And where that knowledge fails us, we fail and the natural world moves on without us. Knowledge is the interface between consciousness and the phenomenal real world. Valid knowledge gives us power to move, to roam, to extend our knowledge. False and limited knowledge confines, stifles, and ultimately extinguishes.

Blessed are the curious, for they will inherit all there is to inherit.