There are times when the world falls away to make way for a new one in my mind, where focusing on one train of thought can change the way I see the world. These are moments unscheduled or planned, usually starting with a question. A simple question. Why.
If you forget how to ask that question, listen to a child and their litany of ‘why?’. They want to know, they want to understand, they want to… well, unfortunately, they generally want to be adults. Poor things.
The asking of ‘Why?’ is so important, and so many people seem to forget it’s importance.
Richard Feynman illustrates the point pretty well with his response in the video below.
There’s a particular feeling that goes with it. A great example of expressing that feeling is by Nikola Tesla.
I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success … Such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything.
‘Marconi and Tesla: Pioneers of Radio Communication‘ (2008), Nikola Tesla, quoted by Tim O’Shei
I’ll sit sometimes with a cup of coffee, looking out onto the world, and just consider a question, or a problem, and in doing that I find other questions to answer, and before I know it the coffee will get cold, the sun may have moved significantly. In doing this, though, I update the world that is built in my mind, the reality that I exist in, and by changing the reality I exist in, I change.
When you’re younger, you try the bigger questions. Life, the Universe, Everything sort of questions. It’s a lot to contemplate to answer those big questions, and you end up asking lesser questions. Decades later, you might have made some progress on the big questions, but if you have you probably just borrowed someone else’s big questions and were fed their answers.
Then, you have to figure out why that answer isn’t right, or why it’s not good enough – why it’s not satisfying. And you start again.
From professional lives to the universe around us, there’s a daisy chain of ‘Why?’ that needs answers, if only we dare ask the questions and be rigorous about the answers.
