Mystery could evoke either fear or awe. Something mysterious implies the unknown, for which no explanation is yet available.
When you don’t know what to expect, it could make you fearful of what lies hidden. On the other hand, mystery could get you excited at the prospect of a surprise lurking to be discovered.
It all depends on your attitude and disposition. Discovering joy in the inexplicable is another way of looking at the unknown. The positive anticipation could well throw up something good, something magical to look forward to. Adam Waytz, writing for Templeton Ideas, says: “We live in an era of imminent explainability.
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We can explain how pathogens spread disease, what factors produce mental illness and how fermentation makes dough rise…Painstaking experimentation, education and scholarly exchange have enabled humans to learn so much.” And now, he adds, with generative AI, we have even more information on our fingertips.
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The downside is that information overdrive may lead to gradual disenchantment. Imagine the day when nothing amazes you; you don’t have the pleasure of gradually unravelling complicated facts that could lead to a revelatory discovery. But, as Waytz points out, “By embracing mystery in the face of tech-mastery, we can regain intellectual humility that makes us more open to understanding each other.”
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