Tom Leu | Motivational Speaker, Author, Photographer, & Musician
17Apr/09

predictable?

omitting-mystery2

 

 

leave ... space ... for mystery.

 

©2009 Tom Leu

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  1. Mystery is overrated.

    This reminds me of something from a Lateral Action update:

    “My advice to you: Do not tell all, do not show all. Find some point of ambiguity or conjecture in who you are or what you do. Highlight it – or better yet, find someone else to bring it to the world’s attention. Whatever you do, never resolve the mystery – allow speculations to revolve around you, like the stars around the sun.”

    http://lateralaction.com/articles/mona-lisa/

    I just don’t agree with that. I mean, I guess it’s good advice for trying to “sell” yourself- if you leave yourself as much of a blank slate as possible, then others can project more of what they want onto you and so they will like you more because they perceive you to be what they want and/or similar to them.

    But I’m not a fan of mystery, myself. Like you’ve said before, “We’re often attracted to the idea of something, rather than the actuality of it.” And I just don’t think that’s the best way to go about it. The allure of mystery is that it gives you the freedom to see whatever you want to see, right? A limitless (albeit imaginary) possibility? But the problem with that is, the actuality is never as good as what you’ve imagined, so ultimately you’re just setting yourself up for disappointment (not to mention wasting time) if you allow yourself to indulge in that substitute. Mystery just seems (to me) to be contrary to the Now.

    And yes, of course, this is all just my completely subjective opinion. I’m not trying to make you wrong or anything, there are no right or wrong answers of course, just differing opinions. And mine is that I should strive- to as great an extent as possible- to be a ‘what you see is what you get’ kind of person, because I just think everything would be a lot simpler if everyone acted that way. And simple = good, yes?

    What if, instead of writing all that, I had instead left a comment that just said, ‘Mystery is overrated’, just those three words and nothing else?

  2. Instead of implying that people should be “mysterious” – maybe the point of this Mindesign™ was to suggest that allowing for mystery in life is a way to get out of ruts, to get exposed to new ideas (in the Now), and ulitmately to learn new things. When people think they already know all they need to know, or refuse to explore new territory, or cling only to the familiar… this is omitting mystery. Insisting on certainty is fear based. So being open to mystery in this sense is freeing and I believe, very underrated.


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