Whispering Wyrd

What’s real and what’s “woo”?

Most of the time it’s pretty easy to spot actual nonsense. Snake-oil salesmen have always been around and probably always will. Whether they’re selling miracle cures, magic crystals that supposedly solve every problem, or some expensive supplement guaranteed to change your life overnight, there have always been people willing to prey on the vulnerable.

They target the desperate, the sick, the lonely, and the hurting. They promise certainty where there is none and easy answers to difficult and complex problems. Most of us have learned to recognize these scams and scam artists when we see them.

But there is also another side to this conversation that I think deserves some attention. We live in the most technologically advanced period in human history. We carry devices in our pockets that would have seemed like science fiction just a few decades ago. We can communicate instantly with people on the other side of the planet. We have access to more information than entire civilizations possessed throughout history. It’s mind blowing when you think about it.

Yet despite all this knowledge, I wonder if we’ve lost something important. I wonder if we’ve lost our sense of mystery. Not mystery in the sense of believing every strange claim that comes along and not abandoning reason or science. And definitely not becoming gullible.

I mean mystery in the sense of wonder. The feeling that there are still things worth exploring. The understanding that not everything meaningful can be reduced to a graph, or a chart, or a lab measurement.

Science is one of humanity’s greatest achievements I think. It’s given us medicines, technology, longer lifespans, and a deeper understanding of the universe than our ancestors could have imagined. I am grateful for that. But science itself was born from curiosity. It started when people looked at the world and asked questions.

What is this? How does it work? What do we not know yet?

Somewhere along the way though a lot of people seem to have replaced curiosity with certainty. If something can’t be immediately measured, explained, or quantified it gets dismissed out of hand. The investigation ends before it even begins. That seems really unfortunate to me.

Take concepts like qi, ki, or prana for example. Three different cultures, three different words, but one ancient idea. For thousands of years people have described a kind of life force, vitality, breath, or energy that animates living things. Entire systems of practice developed around these ideas. Traditional Chinese Medicine, Yoga, Qigong, Tai Chi, and a lot of traditional martial arts all incorporate these concepts in one way or another.

Modern science struggles to explain these ideas in a way that satisfies everyone. Because of that, some people immediately dismiss them as nonsense. But is that really the only reasonable response to not being able to fully explain it?

Maybe these traditions are describing something real by using the language available to them at the time. Maybe they are observing patterns in human health and experience that modern science hasn’t completely mapped out yet. Or maybe they’re pointing toward parts of human experience that are hard to measure but no less meaningful nonetheless.

I don’t know and I’m okay with not knowing. What I do know is that practices like Qigong and Tai Chi have helped me. They improve my flexibility, reduce stress, calm my mind, and leave me feeling better than when I started. I notice a difference when I practice regularly, and I notice a difference when I don’t.

Whether that improvement comes from qi itself or improved breathing, relaxation of the nervous system, or better circulation, increased mindfulness, or some combination of all of these things doesn’t really change the fact that it helps me.

The same can be said for a lot of parts of human experience. Why does music sometimes move us to tears? Why can a walk in nature change our entire mood? Why do some places feel sacred? Why does compassion heal wounds that medicine can’t even touch?

Why do practices like prayer, meditation, Tai Chi, and Qigong help so many people across different cultures and generations? Some of these questions might eventually have complete scientific explanations and some might not.

But I think there’s value in staying curious. Not blindly believing and not blindly rejecting either. Just staying open.

The older I get, the more I realize that certainty is overrated in a lot of cases. Some of life’s richest experiences are in that strange place between knowing and not knowing. A place where curiosity is still alive and wonder is still possible.

Because a world without mystery would be a very dull place indeed.

Amituofo
~Buck