Ahamefule J. Oluo’s “The Things Around Us” — running through March 6 at The Ringling’s Historic Asolo Theater as part of the museum’s “Art of Performance” series — starts in near darkness, a single desk lamp casting the only light on a shadowy figure seated in a chair with a jumble of square shapes behind on either side. The flash of reflection off a silvery trumpet gives the only hint as to what is in store for the audience in this performance, which Oluo himself has called difficult to define.

While the first two pieces in a trilogy of performance works by Oluo — a multi-instrument musician, composer, writer and stand up comedian — drew from deeply personal autobiography and relied on a musical ensemble, “The Things Around Us” is a solo performance that combines seemingly random stories, mostly about other people, and music created on the spot with electronic looping and instruments that include a trumpet, a clarinet, wind chimes and a cardboard box.

As the lights increase — not a lot, as the pervasive darkness adds to the quizzical, mystical nature of the show — Oluo, dressed in black with his red, stockinged feet the only flash of color, is revealed seated on a chair with dozens of empty boxes stacked behind them, a soundboard, foot pedals and their instruments alongside. To start, the self-confessed insomniac launches into a story about falling asleep at a friend’s performance and wondering, “Could I make a show that’s better than a nap?”

The result is 90 minutes of interspersed jazz improvisation and disconnected narratives ending with punch lines (not necessarily funny) that provide no succinct or tidy answers, but instead lead back to a refrain about the complicated, nuanced nature of human beings and of life itself.

For example, what does the relief of pulling a “bloody slug” from one’s nose during an episode of congestion have to do with discovering, during the pandemic, one can dunk a basketball? Or filling in for a trumpet player who has just died in Norway on one’s 30th birthday, with running into a friend one had last seen failing and close to death, alive and thriving?

Nothing — and everything, Oluo suggests.

“Different perspectives, complicated truths,” they say at one point. “Sometimes the best thing can be the worst thing.” Something you’ve resisted that people have told you all your life you should do (play basketball) turns out to be something you’re good at. The pandemic draws us closer to loved ones while allowing us to avoid those we dislike. A long-anticipated birthday celebration is spent subbing for a trumpet player at his own memorial where all the speeches are in Norwegian and you can’t understand a word.

In all these stories there is a sense of what’s supposed to happen and then, what really happens. Life is unpredictable, yet by nature, human beings are always hungry to find patterns, explanations, connections. The answers, Oluo implies — or at least the appreciation — lies in the very unfathomable mysteries that hold “the possibilities of life, joy, love and loss.”

Combined with their mesmerizing soundscapes — each unique by nature of being created in the moment, though also, due to the looping, repetitive — the result is an alluring, hypnotic effect that lulls the audience not into a nap, but into some strange twilight dreamscape.

“Is it something? Is it nothing?” Oluo asks, as the lighting bursts into projections that pepper the entire theater with dots of light, like a panoramic cosmos. While we’re looking for ways to connect the dots, they suggest, perhaps what we should be doing is simply acknowledging the fragility and uniqueness of each one.

What we’re left with as we leave the theater is a sense of heightened awareness and sensitivity, a need to pay more attention to the different perspectives and conundrums we encounter and to appreciate them in all their complexity and absurdity without seeking a tidy conclusion. Like Oluo’s music, life will always be an improvisation, providing both the repetitive and the unexpected, the anguish and the joy. The key, Oluo seems to say, is in listening to and embracing it all.

Ahamefule J. Oluo’s “The Things Around Us,” at the Historic Asolo Theater at The Ringling. 5401 Bayshore Rd. 7:30 p.m. March 4-6. $40-50. ringling.org/event/ahamefule-j-oluo; 941-360-7399.