Swept Away
Silver Linings in the Time of Coronavirus
I once visited a small museum in Vienna called KunstHausWien, designed by Friedensreich Hundertwasser. Every floor in every room undulates, and the visitor is coerced to focus on each step — not take any move (or surface) for granted.
I chose not to take the fun-house approach to my visit, and looked at the deeper philosophy. Why would a flat, hard, solid surface be the preferred base for travel? Our feet are not shaped linearly. When in the KunstHausWein, my brain sent messages to my foot (or maybe the other way around?), the terrain was assessed, and navigation began. One step at a time. Mindfully engaged. I felt as if I were blindfolded, and tentatively moved forward toward my destination, which was simply the next step. Assumption is a hard habit to break.
The state of not-knowing is a message to turn off that cruise control in our heads. We’ve been programmed through the centuries to stray off the natural path and choose beliefs deemed dependable and safe. Solid and certain, as dogma dictates. And guess what? That’s not real life.
The winds of pandemic uncertainty swept into every nook and cranny, each closet and hidey-hole. They plundered many of my go-to comfort zones and tossed the furniture askew. Yet other corners of my life are curiously pre-swept, already prepped for an existence of not-knowing.
I’ve actually been trying to embrace this idea for quite a while. Early childhood questions were unanswerable, or answered too quickly and easily, or brushed aside. Learning how to not ask questions does not mean losing a sense of curiosity. But, I became quieter.
And with all due respect to brains far sharper than mine — in the long haul, a lot of knowledge can be a dangerous thing. Human intelligence can develop a big head. The most important questions (I’m referring to “what’s it all about?”) can never be answered definitively — at least not in the course of where we currently stand on our evolutionary timeline — feet planted (or undulating) firmly (or not so) here on Planet Earth. (I am still open to the Celestine Prophecy, should it decide to appear.)
The quandary of how to be comfortable in the zone of not-knowing was illuminated to me during this past year. Am I better at it today?
I dunno.
