Even in the civilian world,
in areas ranging from science to police work,
it is understood that the proper way to approach any investigation is with the goal of:
solving a problem, or a crime --  not proving a point, or some suspect guilty,
yet this methodology is missing in that most meaningful of all inquiries:

Regardless of status or profession, all men to some extent look into this question:
some end up peering into a bottle; others from the perspective of pews,
but all via verbal debate, whining, carping & mental reflection (private whining & carping).
Obviously few men overtly express the question as being the focus of their life,
but even beyond their own notice, it is always there, pulling on them,
and indirectly affecting everything they do, feel and think
beyond the bare activities necessary for survival  --  in fact,
if you want to go ahead and be nasty about it:
it does not simply affect everything man does beyond merely surviving –
the question is the cause of everything he does besides eat & sleep,
(no proof of this will herein be attempted  [which would be futile] – you either hear it or you do not, and that is that).
 

So  --   even though it be outside of common men’s consciousness,
all of Civilization: all Culture, all art, all mythology, all movies, all religion,
all literature, all social sciences are oblique, but relentless responses by
ordinary minds to the question (though put in sundry forms):
“What is going on here?  --  me being alive in the midst of this thing called life,
and having never ending conflicting, confusing, going-nowhere thoughts about it all?”

Well, there is certainly nothing about collective man’s Civilization & Culture
to keep him from enjoying same, but he need quick realize that
that is all there is there  --  entertainment, mental diversions and distractions,
and that no one toiling in these popular public arenas has any idea of
what the answer to the question is.

He may begin with big “P” Philosophy, but quickly tires of its capacity
to accept doubt and uncertainty as an answer;
he may then wander into Theologies not of his forefathers,
only to find that behind their different seeming facade,
they are but his own, writ in another tongue;
pressing on he would eventually stumble upon the Mystical Dewey Decimals Numbers in the library, and finally feel relieved and confident that he had found his proper home.

Indeed, what has historically been categorized as: The Mysteries,
The Study Of Metaphysics, The Mystical Path, (Zen, Yoga, Sufism, Cabbalism, etc), is
(to those born with Miss Marple up their dress),
the only game in town, and from first appearance  --  the only one needed.
As spooky and pretentious as some of their features be,
such activities are the only ones which specifically claim to know
the answer to the question without reliance on supernatural authority,
and to have practical methods whereby you can gain access thereto  – in other words: they know: The Proper Investigatory Procedure
(and we are herein assuming that “our man” does not go for such an activity offering to sell him the answer outright, and accepts that he, through certain efforts, must achieve a state for himself wherein the answer will come to him individually................................yeah, that is assuming a lot --
guess it’s fortunate that assuming doesn’t cost any more than it does, but anywho, let’s assume this).
 

So our man (with a Poirot on his back) adopts one of the Techniques,
and thus finally feels himself actively engaged in The Investigation --
and without doubt he may enjoy himself immensely, and find much new fodder
to feed pleasurable flights of mental fancy, but if “our man” proves to be a
“real man” in the sense of turning out to be a truly hard-boiled, can’t-be-bought,
take-no-shit gumshoe, he will ultimately (Ha! what a great word, and cover for
an infinity of stupidity --  but, back to the story) either:
realize that his efforts are taking his understanding no where,
or else accept his new activity and the fresh dreams it produces as something approximating The Answer (and there will always be someone older in the ways of  the particular technique to assure him so [assuming his dues and fees are current]),
and we will picture “our man” as in the first class
(which is often held in a quite lonely room [to say the least])  ---   so:
he eventually has to face the plain cold fact that even after many years of
applying the investigatory techniques (disciplines, rituals, teachings) he adopted,
he is no closer to a personally satisfying answer to the question than when he began (not only is facing up to such a fact by a “real man” upsetting, disappointing, and annoying,
same as it is to everyone else,
but also to him it is a moment of totally unexpected, exhilarating liberation).
 

He then (being the natural channeller for the spirit of the real Sam Spade)
undertakes a grilling of himself:
“Where did this investigation go awry?” –
and if he was truly born with bullets in his blood,
and all the planets are lined up “just so” –
it will hit him:
a reality so subtle that clues are all but non existent;
the case cannot be cracked until right up to the very moment it is cracked;
every technique that the human mind has or ever can come up with to investigate the question presupposes the culprit;
no matter how much to the contrary may be claimed, even believed:
the ordinary mind does not and cannot undertake to actually SOLVE this case –
it attempts to prove-the-guilt of someone  --   of some thing  --
some set of circumstances;
what the “real detective-man” must look into is the entire matter of:
his Investigation  --   THE investigation  --  the call to his mind that says:
“I am a question?   You must come answer me”--  which is well enough  –  if
you finally figure out what the hell is actually going on.........
.....in the privacy and strict confines of your little office........
.....what with you being the only one in there.........................
in spite of the fact that when you are distracted, it seems otherwise, you know like: dick and client  --  question and answer  --   problem and solution  --
me and my thoughts....(”Say --  where’d all these people & things come from anyway?!  --   and how the hell’d they all end up in my head/office?!”)
 
 
 

No matter how sincere you are;
no matter what school, method, or technique you originally select
to find the answer to the question,
all techniques are contrived by the ordinary human mind,
same as is the question in conveyable form,
and for any goal that the mind can fashion
“I want to solve this case of being alive,and thinking about it”)
it helplessly, and usually beyond notice, will simultaneously settle on
a guilty party, and everything after that is not an “investigation,”
but an unwitting effort to prove-the-guilt of a specific, pre chosen target
(“Yes, man is Asleep, Unenlightened, and in-Captivity  -- and that is because of,”
blah, blah, blah (as per the speaker’s adopted investigatory technique).
 
 

The man whose eyes/’I’s somehow eventually flutter open wider internally
than is the norm, has something come right up against his neural face:
that all methods to investigate the case  --   cloud the case;
that all techniques to solve the crime  --   cover up the crime;
as thoroughly insane as it sounds to a civilian ear:

This can strike you as unfair, irrational, even discouraging (which you will be
pleased to learn, costs no more than does “assuming’), but that is all as much a waste of time as is everything else in the investigation (as the old proverb says:
“Only a fool, when he stubs his toe on a rock, curses the rock…or his toe” –  yeah! --  that’s right!  --  that is the REAL version!),
but even though no one could ever even begin the investigation to solve the case of: “What is going on with me being alive and thinking about it?”
without they adopt one of the various professed techniques for doing so,
any and every method used to investigate fails to look into the one matter that matters:  The Investigation,
and specifically the fact that regardless of what your natural mind wants to say,
and in spite of what all your peers in the endeavor insist --
you do not have any idea what the Technique actually represents,
nor the slightest notion of what the case really is, simply and most accurately put:
the man who sees this thing through comes to a private place wherein he unconditionally realizes that neither he, nor anyone else in the entire universe
has any idea what they are doing in this investigation (not that can be verbalized,
nor thought about in any routine manner).
 
 

Apparently every one who seriously takes up ThisThing is doomed to spend quite a few years thoroughly engaged in The Investigation --
and fully unaware of what they are involved with,
but if you are sufficiently a hard-boiled outsider to normal civilian life & thinking,
it is possible to truly discover  --   for yourself –
just what a blank you have thus far been.
Since you have read this far (and seem fairly recovered from your hangover),
take a big gulp --  face the cold, invigorating light of self-induced day:
not one human being who has ever lived understands The Investigation --
while they are engaged in it  --  no bod-dee  --  neurally, it is literally impossible;
there is nothing spiritual, spooky, or metaphysical about it,
it is simply that as long as you are looking and questioning (which you must do
to ever find and get answers) --  you do not understand what you are doing,
and what keeps you stuck in that unavoidable station is the failure to ever realize it.

Least you now want to beat up on yourself additionally and feel you are somehow,
personally weak or stupid,
the normal, natural mind of man (the conscious part of the brain) is physically not wired
to be able to do what has just been described  --
how a man now and then accomplishes it, is beyond anyone’s knowledge  --
--  some just can,
and only such a man who has done so will fully understand the above,
but those with the potential, if its call be strong enough,
could sure take what has been today noted, and impose it as a test template over whatever they are doing and thinking about the question presently.

If you hear anything in what has been said, and you do (as an experiment)
place it on top of what you believe now, it will either:
break apart from the force of the truth of what you presently think,
or else it can start you in the direction whereby you might discover
the first great liberating clue to the whole mystery, (which is):
the only real and meaningful investigation is the investigation of the investigation –
get that part down and out of the way, and you (if you are “our man”)