Sometimes the Answers Raise More Questions
Learning is essential to life.
Have you ever had a big, burning question you felt an overwhelming desire to answer? Did you take any and every path you could to find the answer to it? Then, did the answer lead to new questions?
Congratulations, welcome to the Human Condition. For as long as human beings have been capable of logic and reason, we’ve asked questions to understand the universe around us.
Lots of things can be explained by science. Thanks to the scientific process, we can examine the tiniest subatomic particles. Then, we can simultaneously study vast stars and galaxies so far away that it boggles the mind.
Admittedly, science shifts and changes as we grow and change. Newtonian physics and how they explained the Universe for centuries met Einstein’s Theories of Relativity and were never viewed the same way again.
And yet, science cannot sufficiently explain everything. For many, this becomes a matter of faith.
Faith in and of itself is a fascinating concept. While it can be a source of comfort, it can also be a source of division and exclusion. Often, the answers provided by faith raise more questions because they’re utterly intangible.
Faith also gets mislabeled and misappropriated into religion. Religion, in turn, tends to get lumped together with morality and spirituality. Unfortunately, that way lies madness, and sometimes you get selfish, greedy, and narcissistic people who weaponize that to their own ends.
This, of course, is an instance where the answers tend to raise more questions.
Religion, morality, and spirituality
I’ve written about this topic before, but having recently attended my first religious celebration in many years, I want to address it again. I was raised Jewish in a Conservative congregation. Most of my childhood, I felt very much like an outsider in the Jewish community. It probably didn’t help that, at the time, I was part of the only family where the parents had divorced. My mom and dad got ahead of the divorce rush in the 1980s by separating in the late 70s.
The celebration in question was my niece’s Bat Mitzvah, the Jewish coming-of-age ceremony. My sister and her family have chosen a Reform synagogue, and the rabbi is an engaging, personable, and approachable man who made me feel a part of the community, even as a guest. This congregation showed me community, engagement, compassion, and all the things I believe religion was intended to communicate.
Religion should be a community of like-minded people coming together for mutual comfort, compassion, empathy, engagement, and aid. In all likelihood, they share spiritual and moral stances. This is great, until they decide they alone have it right, the rest of us don’t, and their way should be put upon us, by force if necessary.
This is what led to the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Taliban, and much of the division in the United States. Forced morality and spirituality from religious entities that claim they have the answers to all the questions.
Exclusion, division, racism, sexism, anti-LGBTQA+ propaganda, and unhinged nationalism aren’t answers to the questions. Nope. They’re actually distractions from the answers. How? By blaming and shaming others and disempowering the people they claim to be standing up for.
Hence, of course, the answers, when examined for any amount of detail, raise more questions.
Answers should raise more questions
I’ve written for years that one of the best things about life is learning. Every day, I love to learn new things. Yes, often answers lead to more questions. But you know what’s great about that? That means there are new things to learn.
Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, has all the answers. And that’s not something to be afraid of. It’s rather awesome. That means there are new discoveries to be made, new wonders to behold, and all sorts of answers waiting to be found.
However, because we are not taught to work with, accept, or understand the constancy of change, we tend to fear it. Then, certain people in power weaponize that fear and use it to disempower the masses, fuck with logic and reason, and force everyone into their (usually twisted and distressing) vision of life, the universe, and everything.
The only way to combat this is individually. You and I cannot change the overall collective consciousness of the nation, the continent, or the world. We can only directly choose and decide to change ourselves. That means asking more questions.
When the answers lead to more questions, it can get frustrating. That’s one way to look at it. However, you can also see it as a new opportunity to learn, grow, and experience something.
Fear of the unknown is instinctual to a degree. After the initial sense of fear, however, remaining afraid is a choice and decision made by you. Maybe it doesn’t feel that way, but it absolutely is.
How can you make a choice or decision? By asking more questions, of course.
The answers you can control
When it comes to what you and I control, there’s not much. However, what there is turns out to be super important. That’s our mindset/headspace/psyche self. Ultimately, you decide and choose who, what, where, how, and why you are.
This tends to be complicated by environment, finances, outside influences, family, and other factors. But in the end, you’re the only one in your head, heart, and soul. Hence, you alone can ask the questions that make you mindfully, consciously, actively self-aware. These include,
- What am I thinking?
- What am I feeling?
- How am I feeling?
- What are my intentions?
- Is my approach positive or negative?
- What am I doing?
- Is this right for me?
- Do I desire these things, or am I allowing another’s influence to sway me?
Because only you are in your head, heart, and soul, only you can answer these questions. Also, you can only answer them right here and now, in the present.
Sure, the answers might lead to new questions. But guess what? Questions are how we grow, evolve, learn, and gain new insights. Sometimes the answers suck, but you can still learn from that.
Yes, sometimes the answers lead to more questions. But questions are how we learn, work with change, and experience life to its fullest. Maybe that scares people, but overcoming that fear is the difference between being disempowered and ceding your life experience and being empowered and taking the wheel.
Too many people focus on what they cannot control. When you focus on what you can and do control, the questions and answers are more personal and more impactful. When you see more questions not as a problem, but as an opportunity, that makes them worthwhile and empowers you at the same time.
Do you recognize that when you ask questions, get answers, and ask more questions, your life experience evolves?
This is the seventh-hundred-thirty-eighth (738) exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – applying mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.
I share this philosophy because I desire to make a difference in the world and help as many people as I can to find their empowerment with conscious reality creation.
Thank you for joining me. Feel free to repost and share this.
The first year of Pathwalking, including some expanded ideas, is available here.
Also, please check out my author website for the rest of my published fiction and nonfiction works.
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