There is this question. Why do the rarest of the rare from the thing called ‘humans’ walk into the unknown in spite of everything the KNOWN has in store for them! Or, why do they strip away every layer of grandeur, glamour, and riches that they hitherto gloated about, treasured, and proud themselves on and go naked! One can hardly find an example of a ‘pauper’ or a ‘tramp’ taking on this type of journey which is empty of hope, expectations, promises, returns, trophy, success, achievements and so on. Quite often people, who have pushed back frontiers of knowledge, exhausted every instrument of pleasure within reach, reached the end of life of luxury and comfort, and yet see it leading them nowhere or feel void deep down, is found walking down this path into the unknown, not everyone of them making it to it, though. Is it that the thing called ‘longing’ in them is not dead yet and they go with the MISSION to reach the UNKNOWN? What is it that still pushes them into the path of the UNKNOWN even after the realization of the ‘vanity’, ‘futility’ and ‘triviality’ of all their desires and pursuits! Why not their pursuit comes to an end once and for all! Do they still have a THING, something non-material, non-physical, non-tangible, covertly present in them, or rather, innately lying somewhere dormant in them and springing back to action and acting as dynamo to drive them in the quest for the UNKNOWN! It is hardly possible, as I see it, for any living thing or life-form to go for a thing without PURPOSE coming into play. Whether the THING thinks that it is something or the THING rid itself from all thoughts, the purpose is latent. The purpose is in the play no matter where it operates from in the whole of his/her being. In psychological terms, they call it ‘conscious’, sub-conscious’ and semi-‘conscious’ level of awareness etc.

And that brings the question whether this ‘innate’ or ‘covert’ ‘DRIVE’ for the UNKNOWN is something entirely different from and totally separate and independent of all the desires and pursuits, and is not part of KNOWLEDGE they cognitively acquired in course of the earthly journey! Or is it the residual deposit of the same desire and pursuits that drove them this far and now has taken on a refined or a sublime form!  No way to know the answer!

What can be said with certain degree of certainty is those who go on ‘Mission UNKNOWN’ or who go with the ‘mission’ to get the UNKNOWN have never made it, nor is it possible to achieve it that way. It is well-nigh impossible, pure and simple. The simple fact about it is that having a mission will mean having ‘knowledge’ and ‘purpose’. And one cannot fly into UNKNOWN putting on the wings of ‘KNOWN’ or knowledge. That is because the knowledge or mission essentially or inherently runs into conflict with the idea of UNKNOWN. There cannot be a meeting point between ‘KNOWN’ and ‘UNKNOWN’. The moment known walks into unknown, the unknown ceases to be unknown. It is the same with chasing happiness. One cannot achieve ‘HAPPINESS’, one can be ‘HAPPY’, though. He/she can remain in a state of happiness so long he/she doesn’t KNOW what happiness is. The moment they get the ‘KNOWLEDGE’ about happiness, the happiness ceases to be happiness. You cannot say you are ‘HAPPY’. Either you say you are ‘HAPPY’ or you be ‘HAPPY’.  You got to chose one of them.

So, it is not possible for someone to go with a mission into the UNKNOWN. Only the UNKNOWN can sail into the UNKNOWN. The known can only traverse the mountains of the known; the UNKNOWN remains as far from it as it ever was, and it stretches off the point where KNOWN ends.

One may be tempted to conclude (knowledge fed mind has this incorrigible habit of doing it!) that there are two paths – the path of KNOWN and the path of UNKNOWN for us to tread. And those that walk down the path of KNOWN roam around the territory of known and those that walk down the path of UNKNOWN roam freely into the infinite, endless UNKNOWN with no beginning and no end for all the eternity.

The question still doesn’t go away, why do the rarest of the rare who too, are born and brought up in the same ORDER, been to and through schools, dyed in the same hue, walk down the path that everyone do, fed and clothed in the same way, shackled with similar values and beliefs, suddenly decide to break free from all and venture into the path of UNKNOWN.

Well, it is beyond anyone to be someone other than him/her and live them, and then, know how they think what they think or how they function! It is not even possible for one going knowledge-free or thought-free to know anything about the THING that they are.  A thing KNOWN cannot exist without the aid of human-created knowledge. And therefore, it is not easy if not impossible to give a plausible explanation of how and why they reach the end of the territory of KNOWN and go a radical departure from the KNOWN into the UNKNOWN.

I find it safer to talk about the THING that I have been and how and why I was conspired into walking the path of the UNKNOWN, albeit through the evocation of knowledge or with the aid of the residual deposit of knowledge I have in memory store. There’s no other way to do it. And yet, I appeal readers to take what I say with a pinch of salt, for I know that the UNKNOWN cannot be talked about in the language of KNOWN and the way or mode we communicate the KNOWN. It can only be lived and never be talk about.

Let me make it short and simple.

I reached the end of the road at 13 and at that point only one road lay open before me that was the path of the UNKNOWN. I was averse to it, but had no choice. I was far from willing to forgo all my possessions and cut my boat off shore into uncharted waters. I had no choice. Kill myself or walk it! The little paranoid with severe anxiety disorder was at the end of my tether. I wanted my misery to go away, desperate to run away from it. There was no escape. I wanted to fight it and defeat it – a fight that I never won but bungled it. I wanted to take to a place where the misery can’t find way to. The misery went everywhere I could go. And then, before I could end it all, a THING from the UNKNOWN crept into my head that mockingly whispered to me that I was fighting a ghost that I had created out of my THOUGHTS issuing from my KNOWLEDGE that I had unwittingly accumulated in head. It was all my own making. I had made the bed and had to lie on it. I was not meant to walk this path of KNOWN. It was all fake, illusions, painful, self-inflicting and self-torturing. I was to live like NOTHING. This NOTHING is devoid of human-created knowledge. And this is where all my pains and pleasures melt away.

From that point I walked the path of the UNKNOWN with KNOWN still very much present in me. I got the trick of balancing the KNOWN with the UNKNOWN. I began with living an hour of UNKNOWN and then switching to an hour of KNOWN, gradually increasing the hours of UNKNOWN. There was no way I could walk the path of all UNKNOWN, for a THING in me constantly reminded me that I was to live in the ORDER and not to escape it for solitary wood or mountainous caverns. Living in the ORDER created by KNOWN and treading the path of the UNKNOWN was a tricky thing to navigate one’s way. Well, I have come this far. It has been free from hassles. Experimenting with the way I have learnt how to live and how to die OR not to live and never to die!