Mystery is one of the themes that runs through Nectar of Time. Below is everything in the Nectarium that touches on it.
Where it comes up 10
Within this theme 27
Concepts 5
- Ghosting
Being cut off by friends without explanation. Tyler calls it harder to rationalize than a romantic breakup because we're taught 'friends forever'; it is the episode's most personal enigma…
- Enigmas
The episode's central idea: events that are neither good nor bad but baffling, 'not a hooray and not an oh no, just a what the f***'. Stoic equanimity handles joy and sorrow but not the…
- Inner Child
The childhood self of daydreams, curiosity and play. Ian notes that adults asked what makes them happy usually name things they did at eight. Tamir says real wonder comes from the 'curious…
- Wonder
From Alan Watts: the feeling that ordinary things are odd, uncanny and highly improbable. Watts calls it a special enlightenment and says it is 'not a disease'. Tamir and Ian offer wonder…
- Subpoena of the Soul
Tamir's superpower wish, as it is named in the conversation: the emperor's power to summon anyone in the kingdom and get an answer, ending the enigma of why people act as they do.
Books 4
- Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
Tamir loves the scene where a friend tells Tsukuru a strange story about a man his father met at a mountain inn, an example of Murakami's one-on-one conversations that feel like portals.
- The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are
Watts's 1966 book. Tamir is still reading it and wants Ian to have it, saying the 'taboo against knowing who you are' is literally the work Ian does, since self-inquiry goes against the…
- The Ghostly Blue Stallion of Dorchester Cabin
Tyler's unpublished short story about a blue roan stallion that appeared on his fenced Alberta property and vanished; he wrote it in one three-hour sitting and says everything in it is…
- Galatea
Miller's short story based on the Pygmalion and Galatea myth, published as a small hardcover. Tamir picked it up as the perfect gift: substantial enough to feel real, short enough that…
People 5
- Alan Watts
British-American popularizer of Eastern philosophy; Tamir cites his lecture on the court jester about taking life sincerely rather than seriously.
- Brian Cox
British physicist. Colin recalls him saying the size of the universe is what blows him away: 100 to 200 billion stars in the Milky Way and about 2 trillion galaxies in the observable…
- G. K. Chesterton
English writer, quoted inside the Alan Watts passage: being amazed at a gorgon or griffin is one thing, but being amazed at a rhinoceros or a giraffe is a higher thing.
- Madeline Miller
Author of modern retellings of Greek myth. Tamir mentions her short story Galatea as the kind of short, giftable book publishers should make more of.
- Fortuna
Tamir says where someone is going is 'up to you and Fortuna and your fate', not his business to preach about.
Quotes 4
If someone thinks they've got everything figured out, to my mind that's where they're going to stop. Their brain calcifies. It's way more fun to be sort of scratching your head sometimes, because it keeps your brain looking and listening.
It might be the antidote. It might be the thing that saves you from the analytical, logical, toxic, recursive loop.
An enigma is neither good nor bad, it's a why. It's not a hooray and it's not an oh no, it's just a what the f***.
Nevertheless, wonder is not a disease.
Insights 4
- Equanimity can't answer an enigma
Stoicism, Kipling and the Gita teach you to meet joy and sorrow evenly, but an enigma is neither: it's a 'why', and it pushes you onto more treacherous philosophical paths.
- Wonder must come from curiosity, not fear
You can 'wonder' anxiously from fear. The wonder that dissolves the analytical loop comes from the curious inner child who sees endless possibilities and suddenly asks why you even care…
- Separate the feeling from the story
Feeling anxiety and believing 'it's a problem that I'm anxious' are two separate things. The first is a physical signal. The second adds resistance and frustration. Curiosity ('huh, I…
- Three responses to mystery
Most people either push life's enigmas away to keep their day-to-day equilibrium, get paralyzed by them, or go on a lifelong crusade for the answer; choosing to live with mystery is a…
Practices 2
- Get curious about body signals
When you notice fear or contraction, look up and ask, 'Huh, I wonder what my body is trying to tell me right now', instead of making the feeling a problem. Sometimes the answer is as simple…
- Teach children a new star each night
On summer nights Sheela's father had the family sleep outside in the garden and helped the children find a new star in the sky every day. She remembers it as teaching delivered through love…
Stories 3
- Ghosted by three close friends
About three years earlier, three of Tyler's nearest and dearest friends cut him off. He was bewildered and feared something about him was 'too much'. What finally smoothed him out was…
- The ghostly blue stallion
At his isolated Alberta cabin, a huge blue roan stallion with no markings appeared on his fenced property, emerging from a fog bank and challenging the neighbor's horses. After his friends…
- Tamir's superpower: summoning anyone
Asked what superpower he'd want, Tamir skips invisibility, flight and infinite money: he wants an emperor's power to summon anyone in the kingdom, so he could end the enigma of why people…