“Well, I’ve seen some…interesting takes on this.
I think mine has some to do with creativity.
I do think we have traded curiosity and exploration for just looking things up right away.
In some cases, I think this is fine. I’m pretty happy that we can make something like a vaccine pretty quickly. That’s good!
In some cases, I think this is bad. AI art is an example I’d point to: having a computer generate an image based on a description, instead of either getting a little creative with your image search or creating something, is not to our benefit.
The answer (an image) provided to us so easily removes the need to learn something, explore something, or think a little bit.
It’s my thinking that it’s good for us to search. I think we’re a species that needs to explore, one way or another, and easy access to answers is meant to satisfy that need, but it doesn’t.
And I do think the worst kind of person is the person who is convinced they know everything, that there are no mysteries or things worth exploring. That they are always right. You can tell this person because their google searches are always phrased as answers instead of questions: “Masks don’t work,” or “Jim Gaffigan in Cry Baby Lane.”
So while some see this book as nihilistic or anti-progress, my take is that its message is more hopeful. Its message is that there are mysteries we can’t solve because we don’t even have the capacity to understand them. We don’t even recognize them as being mysteries because they’re that unfathomable.
Which makes for a great reason to continue exploring, and to explore in ways that we find engaging and interesting so that we’ll enjoy the process as much as we’ll enjoy the answers.
As for the book itself, I have two gripes.
One is that I was briefly disappointed to find out the art was not Bill Watterson’s alone, but a collaboration. This was a short-lived complaint, I think the art turned out to be something really unique, and although I am totally in love with Watterson’s art, I’m happy to see him trying something new in collaborating with another artist, and I hope he’s happy to be making something new.
Two is that the book is very short, pretty simple. Again, nothing wrong with that, it’s just that after waiting so long for a new Bill Watterson anything, I probably wouldn’t have been satisfied unless it was hundreds of pages of brand new, incredible material. It’s like when your favorite band puts out a new album and it’s around the 30-minute mark. It’s a little bit of a bummer, but then you consider the likely alternative: an album that’s 30-minutes of good and another 20 minutes of crap, so there’s not much to be gained quibbling about length here.
I HIGHLY recommend watching this quick video before you read the book. It gives insight into why the two artists came together, how that worked, and I think it goes a long way towards explaining some of the meaning (or lack of concrete meaning) that readers will feel when they read this.
It might be a case where the construction and story of the book is more interesting to some than the book itself, and honestly, I think that’s okay. The end product doesn’t seem to be 100% what this was about, and if I can be really up my own ass for a second, this book might be as much about the journey as it is the destination. Maybe even moreso, kind of like how filling in one of those magnetic USA maps on the side of an RV gives you a goal of getting a state magnet from each state, but that complete map isn’t the ultimate goal, it’s taking the trip. The map just represents the thing. It’s product.
A lot of time, when we have something that represents an idea, that something is imperfect or dissatisfying in some way. I think this is often because a thing in my head, especially a story idea or a song or something artistic, is a lot better before it’s fully realized. A fully realized piece is always a set of compromises to time, energy, ability, and lots of other things, where an idea that exists only as an idea can and always will be perfect.
The Mysteries is imperfect, it’s mysterious, and I’m just really happy that Bill Watterson is still making art, even if I never see another piece.”