US Highway 1

Do you realize, that an hour-long discourse on the history of US Highway 1 - from it's northernmost origin in Fort Kent, Maine to it's southernmost terminus in Key West, Florida (and all the points of interest along the way) - is not substantially different from an hour-long discourse on the history of enlightenment - from first learning about it as a concept, to it's hoped-for, even longed-for, even imagined, ending point of SUCCESS (and all the points of interest along the way)?

If you say there are substantial, "meaningful", differences, between talking about a friggin' Interstate Highway, and something so sublime as Enlightenment, then you may not have even begun to find out what's going on, regarding "talking" and "thinking" and "writing" about stuff, whether it be the ordinarily mundane, or the extraordinarily mystical.

None of this mysticism stuff - recognizing or getting or keeping enlightenment - is about the study of recognition, attainment, or enlightenment, i.e., the "thing studied"; it is about the study of the thing doing the studying; and until you catch a hook in the mouth of that fast swimming oyster, the pearl of great price may forever elude you.