kar0ling

It was nearly the end of my time in the village when the subject of Mike's solar panels came up and I asked Dan how they worked. He looked at me with a twinkle in his eye and impishly replied, "You're wondering about Mike's white man magic?" There's a worldview difference in play here. I didn't know what caused Mike's solar panels to reorient to the direction of the sun every morning but I knew there was a very plausible explanation. Perhaps there was a winch on a timer, perhaps it was activated by solar power. Maybe even Simon, the yard worker did it midmorning without my ever noticing him. It never occurred to me there was anything mysterious about the panels' movement, despite the fact it was beyond my comprehension. In a Western mindset, we assume there is a logical explanation for everything. We don't consign things we don't understand to the realm of mystery, magic, and spirit -- we expect that science will sooner or later be able to ...