Why do we always complicate things?

Not too long ago, I sat in Unchi's living room, and read her the section on Azeztulite in Robert Simmons' The Book of Stones. As I'm reading, I'm beginning to get a little annoyed with his detailed explanations, and what I interpreted as an ego stroking hard sell. Just as I'm getting towards the end, Grandfather, Unchi's principle guide, suddenly says to me, "White people. You always have to complicate things."

And I busted out laughing.

Grandfather doesn't usually speak to anyone but Unchi. If he had something to say to me or anyone else, he usually does it through her. I don't know why he chose to speak to me that evening. Granted, Unchi and I have known each other almost twenty years, but that doesn't signify much of anything. While he has shown himself to a number of select people, I cannot remember a single instance where he actually spoke to them directly. And yet, he spoke to me that night. Perhaps he said it to make me laugh, or maybe it said it to make me see the humor in what I was reading. Maybe both or maybe more then that. I get the impression that Grandfather rarely does anything without a complex list of reasons.

Then again, does Grandfather need to reason or explain anything? Because what he said to me was true: white people have to complicate the most simplest of things. It doesn't seem to be in our racial/cultural make up to simply accept things as they are, that we have to justify and analyze, rationalize and argue and over think everything that does not have an expert on hand to tell us how to think. We've been trained by our culture to distrust not only our own experience, but our own intuition. That what we see, feel and know in our hearts is to be treated with suspicion unless it has been Officially Approved by someone with a Piece of Paper that tell us he or she is an "expert."

What is an expert? Precisely? Someone who has received an education and has a document to prove that fact. Why does that make them always right? Becasue they're educated? What is educated? In some respects, it's indoctrination. Students go into a university and successfully repeat back what the professor teaches them. Sometimes, if they are especially talented and even lucky, they might even learn to think for themselves but only insofar as it's acceptable to the academic Powers That Be. In many ways, it teaches them to be discerning, to use their natural talents in socially acceptable ways and to be close minded to anything that is outside the "acceptable" frame of reference. To the point where they won't even bother investigating what makes them uncomfortable or even acknowledging the possibility that they simply don't know how to study it.

Now, I'm not discounting educaton. I approve of education. I like education. I think an education is a good thing, but like anything else, it's subject to human faults and foibles. The bottom line is, all you need to get a good education is the ability to read, the desire to learn and the ability to think and observe. Any good library can provide you with the same education as many of our finest universities. The only difference is you won't get that Official Piece of Paper granting you official status as an "expert."

And "experts" can not only be wrong on occassion, but frequently are.

So why are their observations and experiences of matters that cannot be measured by present day technology and explained by present day theory considered more valid then our own? It doesn't mean that such matters can never be measured. When I was a student in high school, a science teacher once told us that an atom can never be photographed and never will. Well, guess what has since been photographed? What is that old saying? Yesterday's magic is today's science? Sometiems all it takes is an open mind.

Grandfather reminded me that there is Mystery and there's always going to be Mystery, that we're not always going to understand and don't need to. And this is a good thing as it's a part of what make Life so fascinating. That trying to analyze and justify it only keeps us spinning in circles without changing a damn thing, so why bother? Why not just acknowledge it and move on? You can't complete your journey if you get stuck mezmerized by a road sign.