Michael Pollan

And the stars, this vault of stars, is more numerous and more gorgeous than it's ever been.

But it's not out there.

It's reaching all the way down to me here, that we occupy the same space, the same intergalactic blanket.

And it was such a... All my kind of learned ways of looking at the starry sky, you know, we all have these predictions, right?

The brain is a prediction machine.

All the concepts and the frames just went away.

And it was just kind of like me, stars, space.

And, you know, this is not such an unusual experience, but it shifted my thinking from solving a problem to being within it.

Yeah.

Well, you know, it's funny.

This is a lesson I learned not just from Joan, but from my wife, who's an artist, Judith.

And, you know, she was lecturing me about, you know, not knowing has its own power.

And of course, it is an idea to cultivate the don't know mind.

And she's right.

It does have a power.

And that not knowing opens you in a way that knowing closes you down.

And that we're very frustrated with not knowing.

But it is the state, it is our existential predicament about many, many things.

And getting comfortable with it, I mean, it was a long way to go for me to get comfortable with it.

But getting comfortable with it, yes, more awe, more wonder in the face of mystery.