ThirstyFish

When you are young, everything is new. You have beginner's mind. As you grow old, we are told that you are supposed to maintain your beginner's mind, because "in the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few". Good luck with that.

When you reach a certain age, music, movies, books, news and work - almost everything - seems repetitive, dull, unoriginal, kitsch and sanitized. Before, when you read a book, you found some things to be entertaining, others boring; some that made sense, some plain irrational; some worthwhile, some useless; some new, some you already knew. Now, you read through volumes of original works and feel fortunate if you walk away with two-or-three original ideas. Nothing seems fresh, worthwhile. Is it all because you've lost your beginner's mind?

Ruling out a midlife crisis, I think it would be reasonably accurate for me to say that, it is not the loss of the beginner's mind. It's something else. It is the observation that most people's view and understanding of the world is increasingly diverging from reality; A new "culture of illusion" is emerging. That's why there is very little original music, literature and ideas. Yes, there's a lot of mix-and-match going on, we're refining everything especially in technology, but in the sciences and humanities, not much is going on. As one travels further on the path of "finding out", one finds himself or herself further apart from the "culture of illusion". While his or her possibilities may increase, the world left behind appears increasingly meaningless. The beginner's mind, the "right mind", is supposed to bring together, to unite, not to disconnect?