Questions

There are some questions that defy answers. Not the ones posed from professors or bosses. Those are the small questions of life. The questions that defy answering are the big questions. The ones that have alluded individuals and humanity for the span of its existence.

Sitcoms pose and solve a problem in 30 minutes. A story without an ending is "to be continued". A test with a question unanswered is incomplete. Every day we are surrounded by hundreds questions that have definitive answers and problems that have specific resolutions. So much so that we get trapped into thinking that every question has an answer.

The purpose of contemporary education is to find the correct answer. If you do not, you fail. Saying "I don't know" is practically a crime and admission of ignorance. In adulthood "I don't know" is often met with hostility or bewilderment. We are conditioned to "know." If we don't know we make up an answer to possibly avoid playing the fool. A vast majority of questions do have answers, but the questions that really matter, may not. So we get trapped, giving compromised answers to the questions that matter. The questions that shape our lives more than any others. After all, if the small questions have answers, the big ones must have answers too... right?

What are the questions that matter? They are different for everybody; Why am I here, what is the meaning of life, who am I? Just a sample of questions that have no correct static answer, and therefore no definitive answer. Their umbrella answer may may remain the same, the specifics of this answer change with time, both shaping and affected by life. Love itself changes over time, and must to survive; moving through the stages of attraction, romance, passion, intimacy, and commitment.

So these questions need constantly be re-evaluated; they shape the paths of our lives. These questions take time. These questions take a lifetime. These questions are not defined by answers. These questions define themselves. It's all right not to know. The important part about these questions is that they continue to be posed.