In
the kingdom within me there resides many questions, some deep and
some less so; some that desire answers and some that just need to be
asked. Those with an explanation I don't always care to listen to,
for it's pondering the thought aloud that's important, as if in some
way it's enough to prompt another's mind. Yes, why is that so?
It's
not done, I can assure you, to prove my intelligence or idiocy, or to
test whether your knowledge is level, higher or lower than mine, nor
to suggest my thoughts are more provoking than yours. No, it's just a
why? put out there. Which if I can be enlightened is all well and
good as is if I'm laughed at because I've missed the obvious or made
some blunder.
It's
funny since as a child I infrequently asked Why? in a wheedling tone
unlike my younger cousins who asked every few minutes, although more
to annoy than to know, and yet now I question everything, though the
questions I put tend to be more considered.
The
asking itself (or the restraint in not) can be dicey. Like in an
interview where at its conclusion it's inquired if you have any
questions? Answer 'No' and you leave them with the wrong impression,
one of disinterest or ill-preparedness; ask throughout and without
being prompted and the panel duly answer and then towards the end act
offended: Are there any more? The unsaid being: if not, then leave!
No,
I haven't got the balance quite right, and some questions, I admit,
might seem random because while they've been formulating the
conversation has moved on (or has always been on a completely
different footing) and now I'm taking it back one or two steps or in
a whole new and unconnected direction. Though I mostly do that in
more appropriate circumstances i.e. not those where the objective is
to impress and not to flummox.
Is
there some truth in that? I ask to confound... to trip familiars up
with questions I know they probably won't have an answer to or a
reasoning for. Again: why? To expand their mind or to suggest,
despite my earlier claim, superiority of mine?
The
latter notion's not pleasant because of course I want to state (and
to believe) pure curiosity, in its simplest form, is the driver and
not some snobbish intellectualism. Certainly the thoughts I have do
not always lean towards the intellectual, and would be, I think,
beneath them, whomever that term is applied to and whomsoever they
happen to be, and therefore, if put, would be responded to with:
Well, really!
So,
perhaps then I do (deliberately?) over and under-reach my audience...
perhaps my subconscious takes a perverse pleasure in it and from it?
Then again, maybe I just think too much, so the questions come when
they come, independent and regardless of who they're put to, as if
there's an urgent need to get them out like busting for a wee and
being nowhere near a lavatory, because if left unsaid to perhaps a
more fitting moment the danger is that moment will never come about
and so, in the course of waiting, their potency fades or you find
yourself back-pedalling and recklessly inserting them into the
discussion. Willy-nilly, and causing such diversions as to exasperate
people and upset their narrative.
It
might interest you to know I'm more successful with my bladder, which
has, by those who know me well, been likened to a camel's. My pelvic
floor more resistant to the dam behind its doors than the flood of
questions my head muscles might have to contain; their point of
release reached well before the stream, although the relief, which
you too might have some knowledge of, is somewhat different. In one I
can continue to attend to other things and in the other I cannot, but
I'll let you conjecture as to which the mind or bladder belongs to.
Right
now, my bladder is empty and my mind is concerned with how to give
you a taste, a selection, of the deep and the meaningless questions
currently at the forefront and of those that pass through: are asked
but go unanswered. The best approach, I think, would be to allow them
to flow in one continuous stream:
whendidthenationfirsttakepeanutbuttertoitsbosom?wh
y,ifJesuswasaJew,wastheChurchestablished?Andwhythenthedividebetweenthosefaiths?Whyd
otheyalwaysshowEddieMurphytalkingtotheanimalsandneverRexHarrison?Whyisthattheyolks
ofpre-packedhard-boiledeggsneverturngrey?
Picture credit: The Little Stream, 1890, Vincent van Gogh (source: WikiArt).
All posts published this year were penned during the last.
