A. IT ALWAYS STARTS WITH A QUESTION

When Robert Maynard Hutchins taught philosophy at the University of Chicago, he began his Philosophy 101 class by saying, "Are there any questions?" No one spoke up, so he said, "Very well then, class dismissed." He began the second day of class the same way and again no one said anything, so the class ended. Finally, on the third day, the students caught on and started asking questions. The point had been made that the study of philosophy begins with asking questions. 
"Creative Fire", by Tim Holmes

That's also where the study of life begins. Life is a series of punctuation marks. There are several commas, some semicolons, a few exclamation points and only one period. But most of life is a series of question marks. 

A physicist by the name of Isido Rabi won the Nobel Peace Prize in physics one year, and the press, in interviewing him, asked him to what he attributed his success. Dr. Rabi answered by saying that he attributed it all to his mother. "When we came home from school each day, " he said, "the mothers of the other children would ask, 'What did you learn today?' But my mother always asked me, 'What did you ask today?'" 

It's a temptation to view questions as adversaries, things we have to do battle with and defeat. It's as if we considered an unanswered question to be an enemy of some sort, withholding something from us, making life more complicated. Not so. I think it's healthier and more helpful to view questions as invitations. I like what one writer said: 

"God's way with life from amoeba to man has never been to fulfill desire, but to tempt to effort. From the dawn of history God's way with man has not been to instruct, but to tempt to discovery. We should not expect the most important of all truths to be spread out like an advertisement, but hidden, as a treasure." 

A couple of further thoughts about this matter of questions and answers: Sometimes "I don't know" is a perfectly acceptable answer. It doesn't necessarily mean we haven't studied well enough. When we say we don't know, we may be acknowledging that in the light of all the available information, we're still left with uncertainty and we're being open to the process of exploration, facing many alternatives and possibilities. To say, "I don't know" means we're waiting for further truth to be discovered or revealed. 

"I don't know" has been the prelude to every scientific experiment, every effort at philosophical speculation and every undertaking of geographic exploration. "I don't know" is usually the next to last word. We probably never get to the last word about anything in this life. 

Some questions require a lot of clarification before they can be answered and that's progress. And, of course, a lot of answers result in more questions. That's progress too. I could share with you all kinds of quotations about this, but I think my favorite one comes out of poet Rainer Marie Rilke in his Letters to a Young Poet: 

"Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign tongue.  Do not search for answers which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them.  And the point is to live everything.  Live the questions now.  Perhaps then, someday far into the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answers."

So life is not just a series of questions to be answered or a puzzle to be solved. It's more like a mystery to be lived and in the course of living it, comes what we call "understanding." 

Taking a tip from Rilke: love the questions! What is the biggest question mark in your life right now? 

Next time: 'SO WHAT'S THE QUESTION?

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