Where Do Your Questions Stop?
Why ask why? The age old philosophy adage. Everyone starts off the early years of their lives asking questions. It is the fundamental portal to learning. Somewhere along the way the majority of people simply stop asking questions and operate as if they know everything they need to know and live in the loop of validation. They stop learning. They don't have to stop learning, they choose to.
If you are a parent you know the period in your child's life where it seems the questions are never ending. The most routine questions to the very unique are common. Why is grass green? Why is the sky blue? Why do elephants look like that? Why, why, why, why? Sometimes parents give their children the wrong answers not because they intend to, but simply because they don't know what they themselves don't know. The learning mechanism in the human brain never shuts off, it just operates differently at the different phases in our developmental lives. From the time we are born we are cognitive sponges soaking anything and everything around us. This is all automatically done. This sponging process never stops. We take things unconsciously pretty much our entire lives but what we consciously acknowledge changes drastically once the capability of consciousness actually develops in us.
Once we develop the capability of having mindfulness our automated mechanism of learning is switched from auto to manual. In this mode we have to consciously choose to learn. We still take in information but it is filtered. So what we become aware of is subjective. For many of us this never happens or is limited and for good reason, there simply isn't a need to. Once we get to that point the limited things we know are then perpetuated into our prediction loops of self fulfillment. Few people consciously push themselves outside their established comfort zones to grow, learn and improve because the comfort zone is already established. Ironically it is at this point that we view questions as a nuisance. We don't like them because they challenge too many habits of thought, feeling, and action we have. We label people as nosy, trouble makers or rebel rousers if they ask too many questions. The status quo now reigns supreme.
The paradox is that society benefits from those who never stop asking questions. You benefit from this through advancements in technology, medicine, health care, everything. If we didn't have those that pushed the envelope with their inquisitive minds we would all still be living in the dark without fire, light, the wheel, etc. Historian Howard Zinn famously said we should never stop asking questions. We should never stop asking why. And that we should always be suspicious of people who get defensive over being asked too many questions. The most profound advancements in civilization have come about from asking why. There is only one way to continue on the path of progression and that is to continuously questions things. Start to ask yourself where your questions stop, and why.
If you are a parent you know the period in your child's life where it seems the questions are never ending. The most routine questions to the very unique are common. Why is grass green? Why is the sky blue? Why do elephants look like that? Why, why, why, why? Sometimes parents give their children the wrong answers not because they intend to, but simply because they don't know what they themselves don't know. The learning mechanism in the human brain never shuts off, it just operates differently at the different phases in our developmental lives. From the time we are born we are cognitive sponges soaking anything and everything around us. This is all automatically done. This sponging process never stops. We take things unconsciously pretty much our entire lives but what we consciously acknowledge changes drastically once the capability of consciousness actually develops in us.
Once we develop the capability of having mindfulness our automated mechanism of learning is switched from auto to manual. In this mode we have to consciously choose to learn. We still take in information but it is filtered. So what we become aware of is subjective. For many of us this never happens or is limited and for good reason, there simply isn't a need to. Once we get to that point the limited things we know are then perpetuated into our prediction loops of self fulfillment. Few people consciously push themselves outside their established comfort zones to grow, learn and improve because the comfort zone is already established. Ironically it is at this point that we view questions as a nuisance. We don't like them because they challenge too many habits of thought, feeling, and action we have. We label people as nosy, trouble makers or rebel rousers if they ask too many questions. The status quo now reigns supreme.
The paradox is that society benefits from those who never stop asking questions. You benefit from this through advancements in technology, medicine, health care, everything. If we didn't have those that pushed the envelope with their inquisitive minds we would all still be living in the dark without fire, light, the wheel, etc. Historian Howard Zinn famously said we should never stop asking questions. We should never stop asking why. And that we should always be suspicious of people who get defensive over being asked too many questions. The most profound advancements in civilization have come about from asking why. There is only one way to continue on the path of progression and that is to continuously questions things. Start to ask yourself where your questions stop, and why.
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