Of the many items that have found their way into my basement’s cabinet of curiosities, perhaps my most beloved is a Bigfoot sketch drawn for me by a friend. There he is tromping through the underbrush: arms swinging, gaze fixed, his trailing footprints the only evidence of his being there.

Each day as I sit down to write, that Bigfoot sketch remains squarely in my field of vision: a reminder of my first, true cryptozoological love. We first met when I was eight years old, a spry young man with a library card and a mother who trusted him to use it. While cruising the collections one day, I came upon him. No, not loitering the romance section, but within the books themselves, sharing shelf space alongside dozens of other books dedicated to creatures whose existences were equally in question.

Enter the Loch Ness Monster, the Yeti, among a much larger cast of characters, all of whom I’d have invited to my birthday party had I thought they might attend. These creatures soon consumed my childhood. While most kids my age asked Santa for dolls or toy trains I asked for plaster of Paris. You know, in case I had to cast a Bigfoot print.

After carting most of that library shelf home with me, I did what any monster-loving eight-year-old does: I founded the Indiana Monster Research Center in the storage closet adjacent to my bedroom. There, amid stacks of dust-covered photo albums and wooden tennis racquets, I waited patiently for the phone to ring. After three days, our funding was cut (read: my mother needed her phone back), and so, amid public outcry (my own) the research center shuttered for good. Down but not out, I tried a new tack: laced my boots, packed my backpack tight, and ventured into the “field”. By which I mean my backyard.

Metaphorically speaking, I’ve never quite left it. Even today, every walk in the woods doubles as a Bigfoot hunt, and every swim in a lake leaves me scanning the surface for scales.

It’s not that I’m obsessed, I assure friends and family, I’m just open-minded.

Yes, they smile politely. You certainly are.

I’ll be the first to admit that Bigfoot’s existence (or not) is hardly the most pressing question of our time. Far more important is what Bigfoot—and all the other so-called monsters, Martians and weirdness—have come to represent: our commitment to a good mystery. The unanswered question, however, is whether we of the 21^st century is willing to explore such mysteries in good faith. Can we be trusted to employ reason, logic, and critical thinking to reach a fact-driven conclusion? On our best days, perhaps. Though on the other days, it’s a whole lot easier to go with our snap judgments, instead.

No matter what you believe, here’s one truth we can all agree on:

We humans—with all our complexities—are surely the crown jewel in any cabinet of curiosities.

Embrace it.

We are who are.

B.J. Hollars is the author of several books, most recently Midwestern Strange: Hunting Monsters, Martians and the Weird in Flyover Country from which this piece has been excerpted and which he will be reading from and signing at 7pm on Tue. Sep. 24 at the Local Store. Read more by and about B.J.