Pop the Question!

Children. Ah, so pure, innocent, and.... annoying, at times. Annoying when they don’t stop bugging you with various questions, or the same question over and over again. It’s amazing to see them getting very interested about the simplest matter. I remember when one of my brothers was around three, he really liked animal illustrated books and miniatures. He always asked my parents to tell him the name of each animal over and over again. Sometimes, my parents seemed bored of it (even me, a six year-old kid, felt the same way), but he never did.

We were once like that, curious and enthusiastic about everything. As we grow up, the attitude is slowly disappearing, though. For most people, at least. Once amazing and somewhat mysterious world had become too familiar to us that we eventually lost our interest in it. And when our curiosity towards our surroundings is disappearing, the fewer questions are asked about it.

Truthfully, thinking isn’t actually fun. It takes a lot of effort and energy. The more curious one is, more questions are asked. The more questions asked, more thinking is needed. That can be pretty exhausting. Not only that, it often brings unpleasant consequences. And human instinctively always try to avoid the unpleasant, which is why it’s normal for feeling reluctant to think.

I guess most of you are familiar with the expression, “What you know can’t hurt you”. I guess there’s some truth in it. The more we think, the more we know, it’s more difficult for us to feel comfortable because there are so many things to be concerned for. If the amount of people who live in poverty all around the world doesn’t intrigue us, it will be easy for us to live a happy and peaceful life since their poverty has nothing to do with us (or so it seems). On the other hand, if we question the reality, it will certainly make us uneasy at times. If we don’t bother to think about the possibilities after life, we will probably feel fine with our life. People who DO bother to think about the possibilities after life certainly don’t have that privilege. For those who believe in the afterlife, the uncertainty of it is nerve-wracking, will it be better or worse than the state of living? It’s no difference for those who don’t believe it. The belief that there’s nothing after life can make them desperate since it basically implies that their life is meaningless. The logic is, if death is eternal, even hundred years of life means nothing compared to eternity.

Our quality of life is better thanks to people who are brave enough to ask questions and work hard in order to answer it (Philosophy 101, everyone?!). All developments are started by a simple act of asking a question. If there weren’t for people who were “crazy” enough to ask the most fundamental, yet mostly ignored, questions such as what life is, what truth is, what knowledge is, we might not be able to enjoy the comfort of cars, water heaters, television, and other modern devices which can’t be separated from our daily life. We owe them a lot for forming the basics of scientific methods, which brings us this far.

Living in a somewhat “modern” life, it’s more difficult for us to start such revolutionary changes like they did long, long time ago. At the same time, living in “modern” life also consumes our time so much that we often forget to look around and contemplate about anything. Or in other words (borrowing from Blur’s lyrics, no copyright infringement intended), “You’ve been so busy lately that you haven’t found the time to open up your mind and watch the world spinning gently out of time”. We actually have the curiosity, it’s just not channeled in the “right” way. “Right”, in the sense that the curiosity doesn’t make us a better and wiser person. For example, celebrity marriage makes us enthusiastic while we couldn’t care less about our existence.

My point is, we are human beings with reason and logic. That’s what makes us different from other living creatures. With that condition, is it normal if we live like, say, animals---living day by day only by instinct? Is it normal for us not using our reason and logic to see ourselves and the world around us?

René Descartes once said, “I think, therefore I am”. And what is the best way of thinking than asking questions? So, pop the question!