It’s a mystery to me

I could get all profound and philosophical in response to this Bloganuary prompt. But there are a number of mysteries in life that I will probably never get to the bottom of, and don’t particularly want to.

Because, I would suggest, a mystery is not necessarily a puzzle that has to be solved. It can just remain a mystery.

I like good, old-fashioned mystery stories. A touch of mystery is always enjoyable. The best Netflix series always have something that needs to be resolved – a question mark that hangs in the air (usually at the end of an episode). They could be crime stories, or perhaps a documentary about a real-life crime that was never solved. Some of those are the best; there are investigations and dead ends and possible suspects. One that I watched recently was about the assassination of Swedish politician Olof Palme, who was shot dead on a rain-soaked street in Stockholm in 1986. The series suggests who the murderer might have been, but…Who knows, for sure? Who will ever know?

A mystery is something we can’t quite figure out.

Here is a short list of mysteries that have gone in and out of my life, and that I would like to have resolved – and others that I don’t care about at all:

Trigonometry at school: Didn’t care, and still don’t. What’s the point? The same goes for anything mathematical, really.

Daddy’s wartime experiences: He never talked about them, but I would like to have known how he felt, what he learned.

My favorite pair of earrings: I wish I knew where they had gone… They’re probably hiding somewhere.

What on earth are they up to? The mystery of Curling.

A game called curling, that I see pop up in the Winter Olympics: It looks so daft that I don’t think I want to know how to play.

Is the Jamaican Petrel extinct, or will we one day hear its strange cry, up in the Blue Mountains? I hope so.

Cats are mysterious creatures. Although I love all animals, there is something about cats that I would rather leave quite alone.

The miserable Kanye West. (Sorry, Ye).

Why is Kanye West so appealing to women? (Sorry, his name is Ye now). That surely is a mystery…to me…

And I could go on.

Of course, the biggest mystery of all is: “Why are we here?” But many religious people claim to have that one figured out.

Albert Einstein was not, so far as I know, religious. He just liked to delight in the mystery of it all:

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.”

Indeed, scientists do love a good mystery, and they are happy to take a long time (forever, maybe) unraveling it.

This is not a live Jamaican Petrel: It is a study skin from the American Museum of Natural History. It was last seen in 1879. This nocturnal bird is extremely difficult to find, and could still survive in remote areas of the Blue and John Crow Mountains. Could it be? (Photo by Leo Douglas)