The more I come to know, the more I realize that I don't know.
There is more Mystery in the world for me now than when I was a child. My songs, paintings and prose have progressively gotten better in that they convey some of that Mystery. The downside is that, as time moves along, I'm maybe not quite as prolific as I was when I was younger because of the scarcity of time caused by increased responsibility. ;)
Mystery and Epiphany, artistic, musical or otherwise, go hand in hand...to continually doubt, seek and question The Known opens up massive unmined vistas for creative exploration as well as "clearing the fog" from one's vision. It's kind of like "applying the Scientific Method to Life" for spiritual, creative and inspirational purposes if you will.
Unquestioned belief and too-eager faith can really blind one to the truth, allowing you to find what you expect to find rather than what is really there. Here's the perfect example of that, the "flying horse" perception: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method#Truth_and_belief
This is why, when testing reality, methods like the Double-Blind are used so people's opinions, including those of people performing the tests, can't affect the results. The facts need to be allowed free reign to speak for themselves regardless of what we want.
This has me thinking of an old quote:
"I slept with Faith and found a corpse in my arms on awakening; I drank and danced all night with Doubt and found her a virgin in the morning."
It's important to reinforce creative habits, modes of behavior and thought, hence my comment on "applying the scientific method to life". If you allow your thinking to become cyclical, you will only ever see what you expect to see and your boundaries of thought will firmly crystalize, becoming a cage.
Instead of quashing Spirituality, the practice of creative and incisive thinking frees one from the cul-de-sacs and dead ends, encouraging growth and helping one to more firmly plant one's feet on the "hallowed ground" of the path ahead.
The paths ahead beckon each of us. Tread carefully. :)
