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 spiritual as Enlightenment, then you may not have even begun to find out what's going on - with 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.