Lately, I’ve been feeling a bit tired. Not physically, mentally!

Religion has its version. Science has another. Physics, chemistry, astronomy, geography, history, philosophy, each one serious, each one confident, each one certain it’s right.

It feels like a group of people crowded around an elephant, all very busy. One touches the trunk and says, “It’s a pipe.” Another grabs the leg and insists, “No, it’s a pillar.” Someone else feels the ear and says, “You’re both wrong, it’s a huge leaf.”

What’s even funnier is when two people happen to be touching the ear. They lock eyes and get excited: “See! Our theories match! We’ve been proven right!” So they start writing books, teaching classes, running courses, charging money, telling those who haven’t touched the ear yet: This is what an elephant is.

The thing is, no one is lying. It’s just that no one has seen the whole elephant.

The elephant is too big. So big that centuries of touching still won’t be enough.

Even if one day every discipline, every civilization, laid all their fragments together, we still wouldn’t see the whole.

Because what we touch are surfaces. And surfaces can never assemble into a volume. At that point, I suddenly didn’t want to touch anymore.

Not because I’ve given up on understanding, but because I’ve given up on the urge to say, I’ve touched more, therefore I know more. I’m no longer rushing to level up, to pick sides, or to prove who’s right and who’s wrong.

Understanding that it’s three-dimensional, understanding its scale, understanding that every surface is real and yet incomplete, that feels like enough.



—— XC Scribbles · 肆拾伍 XLV 🐘