The Unnamed Wonders: Reclaiming Mystery in a Labelled World.

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I've been thinking maybe we’re naming too many things? Like, we have a name for every damn thing now. Every bump, every rash, every weird feeling in your chest there’s a name, a Latin root, a pharmaceutical advert with a guy fly-fishing while his colon explodes. It’s too much!

I say we need to bring mystery back. Just a little. Like, remember when you were a child and you’d find some weird object in the woods? You didn’t know what it was. Could’ve been alien tech, could’ve been a rusty carburettor, could’ve been a cursed amulet that turns your dog into a tax accountant. You didn’t know! And that was the fun part!

Now? You take a picture, Google Lens it, boom “Oh, it’s a 1987 Honda Civic alternator bracket.” Well thanks, Sherlock! You just murdered the wonder! You just took that little spark of imagination and drowned it in a sea of metadata.

And don’t even get me started on food. You go to a restaurant, and they have names for stuff that shouldn’t even have names. “This is our deconstructed beet foam with Himalayan regret dust.” What the hell is that?! Just give me a sandwich, man! I don’t need a dissertation on the emotional journey of the radish.

I say we start leaving things unnamed. Just a few. Like, you walk into a room, and there’s a weird smell, you don’t try to identify it. You just sit there and go, “Hmm. That’s... something.” Could be mildew. Could be existential dread. Who knows! Let it be!

Because once you name it, you have to deal with it. You have to fix it, label it, file it under “Things That Make Me Sad.” But if you don’t name it? You can just go with it. You can let it haunt you in peace.

So, yes, bring back the mystery. Let some stuff stay weird. Let your brain do a little jazz improv instead of Googling everything like a grasshopper. That’s all I’m saying.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go stare at a weird stain on my ceiling and not figure out what it is.

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