Do you think its of the utmost importance to ask questions? Why is something done this way? How can we improve what’s not working well? Have you ever noticed how rarely multiple questions are asked of you by others in conversation? How much of your life is spent around boring and uninteresting people? Too much? Do you feel energetically drained or amplified around certain individual non player bot characters within the system?
At the time of this writing the holidays have just occurred. During this time it's customary for us to spend time with folks we may not see that often. Extended family, friends back in town, etc... Many of them will talk about shit. Saying little to nothing about anything. Discussing small town and thus likely, but not always, small mindedness, or maybe their work dynamics, or perhaps which shows their watching to be entertained. Maybe there will be some room splitting discussions of politics or religion. But every once in a while, you might have a conversation about something that is not within the narrow canyons of average thought. In order to have one of those conversations, it cannot be unilateral, if you know that word - being any doctrine or agenda that supports one-sided action. It must be a reciprocal discussion, of give and take, statement and question, to rise up out of a shallow canyon and see some level of horizon.
It always makes me question why in these real social dynamics, how few folks actually ask you questions about yourself. We know due to the massive narcissism epidemic, many just want to talk about themselves and what’s going on in their own lives, perhaps not even tracking how much the others in the conversation are interested in what they are saying. For to keep another pair of ears interested during a discussion at a party, or around a dinner table, or even in a work environment, the speaking party must not just project, but also be willing to receive. Their ears must function as much if not more than their mouth. For we have two ears and one mouth and they are to be used proportionately. This entails asking multiple if not frequent questions of others.
Asking questions means you're interested. You care. In reality, many non player characters of normality don’t really care beyond perhaps the standard, “what have you been up to?” surface level inquiry. Questions breed curiosity. They help you learn. The answers feed you information and help you establish a
growth mindset in life. In most social situations, surface level questions may be peppered a bit, but deeper and real questions are rare. This can be because of a fear based mindset, and fear breeds contempt. In the professional workplace especially its common for new recruits to be scared to ask because the moment they ask reveals they don’t know something. In that environment, this will surely be to a potential group of onlookers, fellow students or colleagues. Yet, wanting to know is will engagement. A put forth or effort to show you want that growth based improvement, and that you care.
I have some distant acquaintances, who could be called family members, who don’t ask each other much. Their more than happy to ramble on about the dynamics of what’s going on in their small town. Such as “hey there’s a new teller at the bank”. It’s small town and often but not always small mind syndrome. They ask a bit of each other who they see periodically or once in person at most per year, but they have a general attitude to not pry. For it would be thought of as being too nosy. Due to this bland brain dynamic within their family, which is one of putting in a basic minimum effort, they don’t know that much about each other. I ask them questions about their relationships and social situations and they can’t answer those questions about one another. Let alone know anything more personal about their family members such as their hidden struggles, potential depressions, or even the broad brush strokes of their financial situations. And these are siblings who over the years have drifted apart and are just not that close to one another. They certainly don’t know much about me as a distant family member, who will always stay distant to them. Which is probably a good thing since they have some religious dogma and I could be said to be an occultist or at the very least am someone with occult interests. Their none inquisitive nature does feel to me like they simply just don’t care about learning that much about yours truly, but from their narrower, shallower, and less sophisticated point of view, it’s because they seem to think that others will just tell them things without them having to ask.
As we get more developed, strong willed, and independent, we save the answers to the deepest questions for those who really have the ears to ear. This is of course old knowledge dating back all the way to the ancient mystery traditions. For the deepest answers require the deepest questions and the profane are not developed enough to even be able to ask deep questions. Those that have some level of answer for those questions, learn to not volunteer the information, unless it’s worth transmitting to one who can accept, process, and do something with the data. So I in my life have learned to volunteer almost nothing unless
it’s asked of me. Regarding anything. Basic day to day activities, advantageous things learned, new cool discoveries, and certainly also regarding matters of perennial philosophy as Manly P. Hall Called it or Ageless wisdom as Paul Foster Case called it.
The advice “don’t explain or complain” is an old adage which when first examined may seem a bit off or inaccurate. For reactionary complaining is not going to get you anywhere in any dynamic, as a Virgo I know this. For a problem with Virgo’s is they can be very whiny and needy. So knowledge of that can help you work on an area of potential weakness. But explaining why you did something is good correct? Only if it’s asked of you. Explanations are best followed by questions, in a teacher student relationship.
Can you tell us more? Sure will do... For a period of time, I lived at a quit upscale and non-dumpy trailer park while working on fixing up a house. This was in our small 20 foot silver Airstream trailer. If you’re not familiar with what that is, just picture a giant silver Twinkie. They are very well made rigs, and we always worked to keep it clean and our space the same. Minimalist. Japanese tidy. Clean space for a clean mind. There was another rig or coach, as their also often times called, which looked quite old and junky just a couple spaces away. Not well maintained, weathered, cardboard over some of the windows, a couple of the wheels removed propped up on cinder blocks, an old shed behind it, etc... It was one of the few rigs in the trailer park which looked like the owners had been living there full time for a very long time out of necessity and not by choice or just because they were passing through on a road trip adventure. I had seen one of the owners walking about here and there on occasion, an old timer who looked like he would be old man Winters who owned the haunted amusement park out of an episode of Scooby Doo. Disheveled with mad scientist hair. The one and only interaction I ever had with him was a brief few line exchange, where he did not inquire with me in any way, asking get to know you questions, because he didn’t care, but instead the second sentence out of his mouth was to make a comment about how he could never afford to do something. So he instantly defined himself to me by his scarcity (which is really his perceived scarcity) and what he couldn't do. He over explained, without me asking, in a reactionary way, his life baggage to a complete stranger and I was able to instantly tell he was a debtor, in a less than ideal living situation because of his frame of mind.
This is a similar classic dynamic to bad date syndrome. Where a guy and gal are at a restaurant and the woman is a blabbermouth valley girl Chatty Cathy doll, unilaterally explaining away all aspects of various social minutia of her life without the reciprocation of ever wanting to know anything about the man she’s supposedly there to get to know. As many men know, shallow women just want to talk about themselves, so talking to unsophisticated women in social environments, which 99.999% of the time take place in dens of alcohol distribution, can far too often consists of just listening by nodding and looking interested. So for how much dating sucks, it’s still good practice for becoming a better listener.
Another instance at the trailer park involved me bringing my two small dogs over to the pool in the height of balls hot summer. It was 100+ degrees so it would have been irresponsible to leave them in the rig which would essentially be like leaving them in a hot car. No one else was at the rather nice little pool with an unfortunate ugly chain link fence around it. So I brought the dogs in and tide them up in the corner in the shade. A few minutes later, an employee from the trailer park came out and told me I couldn't have the dogs in the pool area. My response was “why?” He gave the usual non player character “company policy” response which is euphemistic code for, the owner decided so, or a group of people sitting around a table at the high level of this skyscraper decide so. The second I asked him “could you please explain or elaborate on that?” he couldn’t. His statement fell apart. There was no more intellectual depth there.
For there is massive power in asking why. Play the why game with anyone as see how quickly they can’t answer. It’s usually after two or three rounds. “Why do I have to go to church?” “Because we said so”. But “Why?” “Because we always have and it’s the way it has to be.” “How do you even know god is real?” “Shut up kid, just believe.”
By asking “why”, you set up your mind to be ready for change. Youngsters who ask why have a bright future ahead if they continue asking why into adulthood. Always needing to know the “why’s” through life make one much more powerful and leads to increased sovereignty. Breaking through the shallow glass ceilings of meaningful and uncomfortable questions that many people want to say, but don’t know how. It is the predecessor of future lives of depth free of dogmas. For asking is a great stimulator to get deeper into anyone’s thought processes. One major head cracking along our life’s journeys, is as we mature continuing to
ask questions, we come to the realization that very few people have any real answers.
To go further down the rabbit hole, every exchange you have in life is an offer and acceptance. A contract. In commerce is you ask questions, you remain, powerful, a king. If you frame everything as a question, you remain in honor, without arguing, or going silent, and are essentially offering a conditional acceptance to the offer. Which it puts the conditional acceptance back on the other party to answer. “Do you know why I pulled you over today”, “I’m not sure officer, can you please inform?”, “you were speeding.” “Was I speeding and do you have proof of my speed?”, “I have it on radar.” “Can I see the radar readout please?” “Sure.” “Can I also see some identification please?”, “Why do you need to see my identification?”, “Are you refusing to identify yourself?”
If one gives respect, and stands in honor, without being argumentative, questions have huge power. As shown from this example. Especially in a court of law. Which is a game inside a court as much as a tennis court is a game within a court. A fantastic cultural reference of this appears in a scene in the 1990 Monty Python film Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead. Here’s the scene in its entirety.
Now here, whoever continues asking questions, without making statements, wins the game don’t they? Statement 0-1. This is because asking questions remains you in honor as a creditor, while making statements is being an argumentative debtor. If you go through life arguing, not questioning much of anything, that’s not going to be a very fulfilling life.
In spiritual teachings there is the dynamic of cataphatic and apophatic. With cataphatic being directly telling and apophatic being attained by negation. Putting the question back on the student and getting them to have to figure it out for themselves. I once spent numerous weeks with a teacher of mine. 1 on 1. The more I probed, the more he talked. At one point he highlighted how outstanding it was that I was asking so many questions and quality ones at that. Why? Because I listened and asked the right questions. Being given answers that I knew would then require change.
I Started a podcast so I could ask people who I was interested in questions, in order to learn more about then, their processes, and what makes them tick in order to then see that reflecting within myself. To fill what at the time I couldn't vocalize but certainly just felt was a void that was resultant by others that hadn’t asked me those similar things. Which has been very enriching, fulfilling, intellectually stimulating, and perhaps prevented me from committing seppuku years ago. And as a trade off, relationships have been built which consist of others doing sending that same energy my way. Using me as a source to be able to answer some questions. With deep insights shared, knowledge being learned, and then things upon those discussions being built.
The quality of your life is the quality of your questions. Never stop asking questions. Never stop looking for knowledge. Never discount who will provide you the answers. There will be disappointment along the way, its natural but it should not be due to lack of effort from your side. My dear friend James Ferran said it best when he mentioned, truly listening is a great gift that you can give someone on their journey.