Comments on: Hmm.. Mysterious!

Question: Hmm.. Mysterious!

brynna — Tue, 10 May 2011 07:52:48 -0800

How can I add more mystery to everyday life?

After reading this article:

http://www.spiritmag.com/click_this/article/mystery_loving_shopper/

on a plane this morning, I'm intrigued. I'm definitely one who suffers from the need to know AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE RIGHT NOW.

What are some ways to expand imagination in everyday life by leaving some things to mystery?

By: JeremiahBritt

JeremiahBritt — Tue, 10 May 2011 07:56:59 -0800

Tear all the labels off your canned goods. But do not grab 4 cans a month later, throw them together in a pot and make a bet with yourself to eat it. Olives and cranberries come in cans you know.

By: Stagger Lee

Stagger Lee — Tue, 10 May 2011 07:57:56 -0800

Ask more questions, not less.
Understanding everything around you would be literally impossible. Allow yourself to wonder and to ask questions, and each question asked will open up a myriad of new ones. There's no danger that you'll run out of mystery or questions.

By: sswiller

sswiller — Tue, 10 May 2011 07:58:51 -0800

Start remembering the faces of strangers who you live and work near. When you see them again, make a mental note of when and where they were, what they were doing. Soon, you will have an abstract picture of who they are that becomes more fascinating with each encounter.

By: ignignokt

ignignokt — Tue, 10 May 2011 08:01:23 -0800

As you walk around outside and in unfamiliar buildings, keep an eye out for holes and odd doors (storm drains, cellar doors, boarded-up doors, short doors) and examine them, a la Entrances to Hell.

By: brynna

brynna — Tue, 10 May 2011 08:06:03 -0800

These are great - I'm looking for little activities that can make for fun surprises, like the can example, rather than mindset changes.

By: roomthreeseventeen

roomthreeseventeen — Tue, 10 May 2011 08:08:22 -0800

Have a baby.

By: Metroid Baby

Metroid Baby — Tue, 10 May 2011 08:08:48 -0800

Go to garage sales, estate sales, thrift stores, antique shops. There will be stuff there you don't recognize, that's older than you, that you couldn't ever imagine anyone liking. And all of it has a backstory you'll probably never know.

By: Pickman's Next Top Model

Pickman's Next Top Model — Tue, 10 May 2011 08:12:18 -0800

Give a friend fifty bucks and tell him to buy you a couple things from the internet.

By: WidgetAlley

WidgetAlley — Tue, 10 May 2011 08:12:23 -0800

One of my favorite things to do is, wherever I am, I always check for unlocked doors that aren't supposed to be unlocked. It's pretty easy to do casually, and if you get caught, people are usually more forgiving if you're like, "I'm sorry, the door was unlocked!" (as opposed to breaking and entering.) This is how, once, my boyfriend and I ended up jumping down into a horizontal ventilation shaft so big we could stand upright in it underneath my college library, and following it for miles. It was incredible-- squeezing past huge fans, taking our lives in our hands as we leapt over vertical wells that opened beneath our feet and plunged straight down, into the ground, deeper than the beams of our flashlights could penetrate. Now, when I walk around campus, I still wonder what else is underneath us, what else is down there...

So yeah: explore, even when you're not prepared. Never forget to try a door handle when no one's looking.

By: rumposinc

rumposinc — Tue, 10 May 2011 08:12:54 -0800

Join a CSA--a small one that doesn't give you the option of choosing what comes in your box each week. Even better, from a farm that does a lot of heirloom/interesting veggies. We've had a CSA box for years and I still get a thrill opening it every week to see what vegetables I am going to have to deal with that week.

By: amtho

amtho — Tue, 10 May 2011 08:17:19 -0800

Plant a garden.

By: The Winsome Parker Lewis

The Winsome Parker Lewis — Tue, 10 May 2011 08:17:40 -0800

Use Google's "I'm Feeling Lucky" button.

By: faster than a speeding bulette

faster than a speeding bulette — Tue, 10 May 2011 08:21:05 -0800

Graffiti and street art. Your community may not have a Banksy, Stikman, or Toynbee Tile, but if you pay attention, you might start noticing "artists" with a consistent style or viewpoint. After a while, it feels like you're reading secret messages from somebody you'll never meet.

By: entropone

entropone — Tue, 10 May 2011 08:24:22 -0800

read Jeanette Winterson, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Steven Hall, and Jonathan Lethem, and let your imagination run wild.

By: Stagger Lee

Stagger Lee — Tue, 10 May 2011 08:32:42 -0800

I'm a huge fan of Urban Exploring, and I've been to some really great places, the Weyburn Mental Institution in Saskatchewan for one. It can be a huge thrill, and will take you to all kinds of crazy places other people overlook.

But please take safety (and possibly legal) precautions before doing anything like that, it's not worth it if you get arrested or seriously hurt. There might be a local group where you are that can help you out if you're interested.

By: Gator

Gator — Tue, 10 May 2011 08:32:43 -0800

Plant a garden.

Do this, but get a friend to buy the seeds for you and not tell you what kind they are. Or even more fun, if you live in an area that has any ethnic-type markets where you don't speak their language, go on in once a week or so and buy something, food, seeds, magazines, anything, where you have no idea what it is or how to prepare it or what to do with it, and steel yourself against Googling it.

Buy a used book -- the kind in the bargain bin at your local bookstore or garage sale with the cover ripped off that was supposed to be sent back to the publisher -- without flipping through it to see what kind of book it is, and read the whole thing when you get home no matter what it turns out to be (trashy romance, biochemistry handbook, whatever, you buy it you read it).

At the same time as bringing mystery into your own life, you can probably get a lot of enjoyment about bringing mystery into others'! Write little anonymous notes or poems on pretty little notecards and leave them in places where they're likely to be found -- at bus stops, in library books, in between the cantaloupes in the produce section, slipped into the brown paper wrappers of porn magazines or wedged into the funnies of the next newspaper in the pile at your local convenience store. At worst they'll get thrown away, you could bring somebody a brief chuckle, or you could become the next Internet Mystery Meme if people were to start collecting your little missives.

By: staggernation

staggernation — Tue, 10 May 2011 08:36:31 -0800

Chatroulette?

By: rabbitbookworm

rabbitbookworm — Tue, 10 May 2011 08:38:52 -0800

Ask whoever you go to dinner with to choose your meal for you. Ask your friends and family to write you letters, then keep the letters unopened for a specific amount of time/forever.

By: Metroid Baby

Metroid Baby — Tue, 10 May 2011 08:40:04 -0800

Here's an expensive option: go to an upscale restaurant that offers a prix fixe multi-course menu that they change regularly. Request not to see the menu until after you eat. (This does not work so well if you have any allergies or dietary restrictions.)

By: anaelith

anaelith — Tue, 10 May 2011 08:41:43 -0800

Pack the non-spoiling components of a brown bag lunch (different juices, different fun size candy bar) for the whole week and then shuffle and refrigerate. Or if you have a friend you can drag into it, make each other lunch for a week.

By: adamvasco

adamvasco — Tue, 10 May 2011 08:50:05 -0800

The early surrealists used to just wander around Paris, not going anywhere specific just wandering arund to see where it led them and what happened. No planning involved. You could go to the bus station get on a bus any bus - flip a coin, get off in a hour wander around, see what you find. Or similar with a train. Your profile doesn't indicate anything about you (Maybe it should, this is a community) so I am not sure if this is possible but if it is, give it a try.

By: dahliachewswell

dahliachewswell — Tue, 10 May 2011 09:03:16 -0800

I once heard of people committing a weekend to a random chance roadtrip. They used dice and when they would come to any intersection, rolled the dice to determine which road they would take. This also leaves you the random chance of going around in circles in your own neighborhood, but that's part of the fun, eh? You could choose to start it after getting on the nearest main street or highway. I think they may have set time limits, like, wherever we are at 6pm is where we eat dinner, etc. Take some food and sleeping bags in case you end up nowhere near restaurants or hotels. Also, bring a good map so the navigator can mark your route so you can find your way back!

By: Lucinda

Lucinda — Tue, 10 May 2011 09:04:18 -0800

I used to go for drives and say things like "I will go through five traffic lights, then turn right at the sixth" and so on. Ended up in some neat places.

By: OrangeDrink

OrangeDrink — Tue, 10 May 2011 09:22:09 -0800

go all 'pataphysical and get a map for a different city, and try to visit a landmark in that city. Only thing is, you have to do this in the city you live, not the city the map is for.

This one is expensive, and possibly self destructive, but I used to do it in the college days. Decide that you want to buy a couple things on the internet. Get really, really drunk. Be surprised at the presents you apparently bought yourself that arrive in the mail over the next two weeks that you have no memory of ever buying.

By: Gator

Gator — Tue, 10 May 2011 09:30:47 -0800

Get yourself a pen pal from a foreign country -- preferably VERY foreign, not "everything's the same but we call elevators lifts" foreign. Start a photo exchange with them, sending each other pictures of local stuff every so often, but agree not to tell each other what the photos are of (and again, no Googling). Another way to share the wonder!

By: jillithd

jillithd — Tue, 10 May 2011 09:48:13 -0800

PostCrossing! You'll never know where you'll get a new postcard from!

By: Decani

Decani — Tue, 10 May 2011 10:46:29 -0800

Go travel somewhere out of your comfort zone. Don't plan the trip too much - or at all, if you really want surprises and adventure.

By: lhude sing cuccu

lhude sing cuccu — Tue, 10 May 2011 10:52:40 -0800

Make friends with people twice your age.

By: litnerd

litnerd — Tue, 10 May 2011 10:56:17 -0800

Pick a random gravestone and start up a thorough geneology project.

By: smackfu

smackfu — Tue, 10 May 2011 10:57:50 -0800

Join every swap / secret santa there is, and put as little as possible in your profile, or something like "buy something you can only buy where you are". It tends to get you very random stuff in the mail, randomly. (If you do have a lot in the profile, you tend to get boring stuff you might have bought otherwise.)

By: lizbunny

lizbunny — Tue, 10 May 2011 11:01:30 -0800

Hosting Couchsurfers - not an entirely random thing, you can check their profiles to make sure they're vouched for by other hosts, and it's up to you if you're available to host or not... but for all intents and purposes, random houseguests from around the world can be an unexpected fun time. I haven't had a bad experience yet, nearly every one has been very friendly and sociable - it seems to attract good people :)

It can earn you a fun reputation amongst friends, too. One particularly good night started off with my calling up a couple of engineering friends on a Wednesday to say "There are two cute 22-year old female Belgian physics grad students staying at my place, and they're looking to try some good Canadian beer... are you busy?"

By: jquinby

jquinby — Tue, 10 May 2011 13:44:50 -0800

Geocaching and/or letterboxing might be for you. Depending on where you are, there may be dozens and dozens of microcaches hidden nearby, just out of sight. You never know what you're going to find, or who's been there first.

By: theodolite

theodolite — Tue, 10 May 2011 13:46:16 -0800

I like listening to the police scanners at You Are Listening To.. at work. It's a constant stream of story fragments, some of them funny, some of them sad, and none of them with endings.

By: Obscure Reference

Obscure Reference — Tue, 10 May 2011 17:25:54 -0800

Drop acid.

By: the duck by the oboe

the duck by the oboe — Tue, 10 May 2011 18:57:39 -0800

Read newspapers from other countries in languages you're only vaguely familiar with.

By: sambosambo

sambosambo — Wed, 11 May 2011 01:32:21 -0800

Hide love notes!

This is something I used to do with a former girlfriend. I would leave little love notes hidden throughout her house in random places for her to find. At the bottom of a box of cereal, in the visor mirror of her car, inside the battery cover on the TV remote, as many places as I could think of. Sometimes with just something short and silly "What's cookin' good lookin'?" sometimes a full length love letter. The best part is that you never know when he or she will find them, so once in a while you'll get an amazing kiss or a extra long hug for no reason at all.

The mystery is that you never know when they'll find the next one. I like to think that my exgirlfriend still finds them from time to time or, even better, her husband.

By: sambosambo

sambosambo — Wed, 11 May 2011 01:59:23 -0800

Actually, leaving notes is something you can do pretty much anywhere. At work we share workstations, and so occasionally I'll tape a quote or a poem underneath a keyboard, or on the back of a monitor. You can leave notes inside of books at the library or a bookstore (I mean, c'mon, who hasn't hoped to find a postcard while thumbing through a PostSecret book?). If you're feeling particularly mischievous you can use a sharpie and a wall. Publicly, I don't advocate vandalism, but I will admit to feeling a little disappointed whenever I see a public restroom stall with nothing scrawled on it.

By: pracowity

pracowity — Wed, 11 May 2011 04:14:21 -0800

1. Choose destinations based on randomizers (dice, a deck of cards, a game spinner, etc.).

For example, when I go for a walk in the woods with my daughter, we sometimes choose each left or right fork in the path by each holding out any number of fingers, adding them together, and going left for an odd sum or right for an even sum. Alone, you could flip a coin.

You might draw a card from a deck before each stop on a train, tram, or bus ride, and jump off when you draw a certain card or one of a certain kind. You have to stay on until you draw that card, no matter how long it takes, and then you have to get off.

You might choose a destination in advance, but based on all sorts of elaborate randomizing the day before when you made your plans. Using an atlas or map or gazetteer and some randomizing (X and Y axis number on a map, page numbers, darts at a board, etc.), draw up your plan. It might be somewhere familiar, it might be somewhere unknown, but you go and have that walk or picnic at that place.

2. Be a tourist in your own town.

Sign up for the tour, take the trip, meet the actual tourists in your group, and see parts of town that you never bothered to stop and look at. When the people from Iowa ask where you're from, confess the truth. You'll give them a good laugh and maybe you'll end up going somewhere else with them later, but this time as the guide.

By: moons in june

moons in june — Wed, 11 May 2011 04:43:16 -0800

If you have an older house, you could try to find out its history. The Stuff You Should Know podcast has an episode dedicated to how to go about doing it (#165 on this list). The coolest part is that a lot of older, area-specific history can't be found online, so you have to go to actual record offices and consult old maps and use microfiche and be an amateur detective if you want to dig deep.

By: kamil_antosiewicz

kamil_antosiewicz — Wed, 11 May 2011 07:25:15 -0800

Find out 3 persons with the same name and surname as yours and pay them a vist.

By: everichon

everichon — Wed, 11 May 2011 16:32:38 -0800

Go to work, or wherever you go routinely, by a different route and/or a different mode.

If you normally go to the widget factory by way of Avenue Dray in a car, take a bus the longer way. Walk. Something.

This presumes a bunch of things, but if it can work for you, it can be cool in ways you can't anticipate.

By: vecchio

vecchio — Thu, 12 May 2011 08:58:06 -0800

Wear a pair of nose and mustache glasses.

Or, more seriously, try the yes experiment. What happens if you only say yes for an hour? A day?