Right-side Up
“What do you want to become?” The question which baffles everyone. This question by itself is fine, but the following questions is where we ruin ourselves.
“I want to be a software engineer”
Ah! Will you be able to take the pressure.
“Well, maybe if I study enough, a doctor?”
I don’t think you have enough patience.
“An actor?”
To shoot youtube videos?
“Fashion designer sounds good”
Need not even study to become one.
Our planet had become a swarm of questions - even more, a swarm of confusion. Because, when you are in confusion is when people think of you as an intellectual.
Illusion of smartness
We think the most intellectual person asks the most questions. That is how we all grew, to ask more questions, not to find answers. The truth though is that a human has to keep learning and go deep, not broad. You should ask more questions because you want to learn, climb a step, and ask the next question to climb the next step. But here we are pushing everyone to just keep asking questions. Bigger the audience, grandeur the question, the better. This is how news channels have content to display all day. Ask all kinds of questions to everyone, not knowing why. What’s the goal? Well, no one needs a goal; Just fame.
Whenever there is a big event with audience and an esteemed guest, my mind revolves around the best question I can ask. I will stumble on one, ask it in front of everyone, will get an interesting response just to remember none of it. I definitely remember how everyone pats me at how good of a question it was - that makes me proud.
Destination?!
That’s the beauty but also the sad reality. Everyone loves to ask an intriguing question but never bother about the answer. That is how we have landed here. Many of us start being mentally stable. As we break into more of the world, we are asked questions. Of course we don’t have answers to many. But questions lead to more questions, which lead to even more. All of it ends you up in confusion and confusion becomes the destination.
The most confused ask the questions with highest confidence with no regard to the answer. That’s what all of our goal had become. If you are stable, you aren’t thriving. Confused though? You are on the right path. More confused, even more lost? You are onto greatness. How miserable we have become.
Unravel the knot
Learning to come out of confusion is the path we need. Ask questions but be intrigued of the answers. Become a question bank but with a goal in mind. You can step sideways, ask questions of many varieties, but with a destination to be at. If you are going too tangent, sit still to focus on where you want to go. Ask questions to yourself first before you spell it out. Observe how a jumbled up rope is unravelling with every single question. Ask the questions which can loosen the knot wherever possible.
Don’t become such a huge knot that it’s impossible to unravel. However tight it is, given enough energy, the knot loosens. Don’t fall upon the trance of the confused world. Don’t you become part of a bigger knot. All of us should be going from confusion to revelation, not peace to confusion.