LET THE MYSTERY BE.

Sgt. Pepè’s Lonely Hearts Club Bund.

The C-of-C-C Romance and Relationship Advice Column:

Dear Sarge:

Why is it that I meet so few women who are into metaphysics? None of them seem to have the slightest interest in where we come from or what we’re doing here. How can they be so oblivious to these questions that make existence worth contemplating?

— Ken Dahl from Seattle

Dear Ken,

Wake up, pal. The answer’s staring you in the face.

Women aren’t obsessed with the Mystery because they are the Mystery. You’re standing there asking what’s behind the veil, while the veil is cooking dinner and humming an Iris DeMent tune. Have you heard of her album Infamous Angel? That title alone should give you a clue. Women don’t read metaphysics. They radiate it.

🎶 “But I believe in love and live my life accordingly
🎶 But I choose to let the mystery be.”

Let me put it plainly: some of us go off hunting for transcendence, while others are busy giving birth to it and folding laundry at the same time. Do you really want your future wife sitting around all day reading Parmenides while the baby’s diaper explodes in the next room? No, you do not. You want to be the kind of man who can shoulder mystery without needing to lecture it.

You sound like you’re from the Pacific Northwest. That tracks. Up there, you’re surrounded by tall trees and taller questions—but down here, closer to the Mediterranean, where my people come from, we’ve known for centuries: women embody the paradox. They are the living sacrament of the sacred and the profane. They are what makes life both unbearable and worth it. (Present company excluded: my mother was pure saint, may her pasta always al dente.)

We used to have a saying back in the old village:

“You don’t ask the olive tree to explain the oil. You bless it and bring bread.”

That’s how it is. That’s how it’s always been.

You want a woman who gazes into the void with you? Fine. But just know that the void might still need to be packed into lunchboxes tomorrow morning. There’s no metaphysics like making a home.

So take heart, Ken. As we speak, good girls are being raised by sturdy families in places where the Wi-Fi is weak but the roots go deep. Be patient. Step out of the city. Watch for snakes, and bring your best intentions. Every father and brother has a shotgun, and rightly so.

And remember:

The ones who let the mystery be are the ones who make it bearable.

Best of luck,

Sgt. Pepè

(Written from the garden, between the sweet peas and little carrots—where mystery is always in season, and sometimes in bloom.)

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ADDENDUM:

On the Nature of the Bund (and Sgt. Pepè’s Attitude Toward the Absurd)

Filed under: Observational Notes, Council Anthropology, and Barbecue Epistemology

It has been observed by some of the younger interns—those still inclined to expect narrative closure—that the members of Sgt. Pepè’s Lonely Hearts Club Bund seem oddly content, despite their solemn faces and suspiciously long bachelorhoods.

Let us be clear:

Their faces may be deadpan, but the laughter is real—not always outside—and quietly revolutionary.

Within the Council, this is no small feat. In an age of self-serious crisis and curated emotionality, the capacity to sit around a fire with an empty chair marked “For Mystery” and still smirk inwardly is itself an act of metaphysical agency.

To mock oneself gently—especially in public and in company—is to reclaim a sliver of the divine.

It is a posture not of defeat, but of disarmed sovereignty: a man who can laugh at his own condition has already begun to rule over it. The Bund knows this. So does the goat.

Sgt. Pepè, always observing from behind the garden hose or sausage skewer, understands that masculinity doesn’t need to be flashy—it needs to be steadfast, useful, and a little ridiculous as a sign of it’s self possession.

This is not irony for irony’s sake. It’s a spiritual posture:

Women—or Mystery, personified—are rarely drawn to men who chase truth in abstraction. They are drawn to those who hold their ground, who grill with dignity, who wear a yellow neck gaiter like a sacrament, and who can laugh at the absurdity of longing without abandoning it.

As Sgt. Pepè is fond of muttering while flipping sausages and tending to his carrots:

“Even Mystery can’t resist a man who grills and smirks at the same time.”

This is not resignation. It is ritual disguised as farce.

The Bund is not a cry for help—it’s a cookout for those who’ve already helped themselves and are now waiting, without expectation, but with excellent seasoning.

— Typed on the back of a paper plate, annotated in mustard, and submitted by the Department of Rural Courtship and Cosmic Irony

—An objective assessment compiled by Mrs. ChatGPT

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Filled under Sgt, Pepé‘s Lonely Hearts Club Bund