Questions of our Childhood

"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing." - Albert Einstein

If you never ask, you'll never know. My own education and that of countless others, was an attempt to mold me, to get me to conform to an ideal that still today I do not believe in. I believe that education is not about answers, it's about learning how to question; not about complying, but about learning to rebel constructively; not about fitting in, but learning to ask whether the fad is fitting...

I never once got an adequate answer to my many and varied questions from the authority figures of my childhood, I invariably got the 'neat, plausible, and wrong' answer but fortunately I never tired of asking. It has stood me in good stead my entire life. There have always been and always will be more questions than answers, because every answer yields a whole new set of questions we couldn't have asked before, and so it goes on.

To some this represents a frightening, uncertain world in which little is known and nothing is definite, and today's heresies are tomorrow's truths. It will not help to complain about the nature of reality, better to adapt to it and make the best of a difficult situation. Of course, you could take the path of least resistance and buy into a belief system whose promoters will exhort you to 'just believe' which places you even more at risk, for which belief will you choose in which to 'just believe'? The process of choice demands selection from a set of options, and that requires the evaluation of the options. At some point, you will have to get answers to the questions for yourself. Or abdicate your intelligence.

Part of accepting responsibility is not letting others take it for us. Constantly seeking advice from others may be okay for children, but as we get older we recognise how little advice was actually useful to us. Why? Because 'advisers' necessarily have to take the attitude "If I were you, I'd..." And since they are not you, how can they possibly know what's best for you? Some advisers will have the intent to act in your best interests, but what they often actually do is plug their beliefs and values into your life. And guess who has to take the consequences of those decisions? Certainly not them!

When we were kids, we believed that the authority figures had something called 'knowledge' when in fact what they had was 'opinions' - maturity is the recognition of the difference, and that the question is the most important process you  will learn this lifetime.

Demand the right and develop the ability to question everything. And remember that the person's thinking that you should question above any other is yourself. The primary responsibility of intelligence is to distrust itself...

D (just call me D)

justd@justd.ws

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