"We are buried beneath the weight of information, which is being confused with knowledge; quantity is being confused with abundance and wealth with happiness." - Tom Waits
I don't tug on Superman's cape, I don't piss in the wind, and I make it a point to never argue with our prophetic griot, Mr. Waits. After all, I firmly believe that if God had a wallet, he'd carry a picture of Tom Waits in it.
I often lament that we've lost touch with most of the magic in the world. I guess, what I really mean when I say that, is that we seem to "know" too much in this day and age: everything has had the wrapping torn off of it. So many have replaced curiosity with a need for certainty, and as a result, we think we'll find some kind of power if we can boil every single process down to the atomic level, if we can define and quantify and harness every potential quandary that creation presents.
And yet, deep down, I think we sense that a life lived without mystery - a life dissected beneath a sterile lamp - is a life not only lacking magic and curiosity, but it is a essentially a life without intimacy. And a life without intimacy is a life of isolation and anguish, a life of imploded frustration and inverted desires.
That's probably why music and the creative arts speak to us on such a profound level: because they give us permission to remember, once again, that there is more - much, much more - than meets the eye. They give us permission to once again be curious, to seek the magic, to embrace the mystery.
