Why do we feel we need to know "why"?
I don't know about you but I spend a great majority of my time thinking and asking one little word. Why? The word that every parent dreads their child learning, the word that often times never has an answer, the word that is sometimes better left unsaid yet is asked over and over.
There are so many things unanswered in this life that we lead and for some reason "I" feel the need to know those answers. Like a child, even when I get an answer, especially if it's one that I don't particularly like, I again ask why. I've always been inquisitive and I'm sure to some it must seem as though I'm never satisfied. Maybe I'm not. But I want to know, I feel I need to know.
I guess if everything that we experience was entirely reasonable there would be no reason to ask why; but so many things aren't and probably never will be. What is it they say, curiosity killed the cat? What the hell does that mean? I think I'd rather chance it all by being curious than to walk around with my head in the clouds accepting everything as it is, never wondering. Why do you think that is?
Just a thought.
5 comments:
Ellen Parr said: 'The cure for boredom is curiousity...there is no cure for curiousity.
We're like a sponge, we were born with the need 'to know'. When you stop wondering why...I think your time is up.
This weekend, I desperately wished the question, Why? had never been invented. I was grilled, on and off, throughout the whole of Sunday as to the 'why's' of every aspect of sex by two young ladies aged 13 and 11. I think I deserved an award for thinking on my feet that day!
I think we are compelled to ask why because if we can understand something, e have a better chance at feeling like we can control it.
Honestly when you look at the grand scope of things, human beings have very little we really control. For example, there are several studies that have hinted that many more of our functions (even making decisions) may be guided by the subconscious more than we want to admit. Also, genetics. While I'm a firm believer that environment does affect development, I do believe that we have certain personality traits encoded in our dna. Our environment can nurture or downplay those traits, but they are still always there.
The scary thing is that each of us has the possibility of being a genetic time bomb. Maybe in ten years we'll just melt down.
If you doubt the effects of biology, consider hallucinogenic drug use. A shift of a few chemicals and hormones in the brain, and suddenly you're in a whole new world with a whole new perspective.
I think that at the base of (wo)man trying to sort the stimulus of the world and uncover the big "why", we are grasping for some way to feel in control.
Good question you pose here. I think human curiosity is intelligence's twin. I'm with you - I'd rather be curious than indifferent as well. My parents say I was relentlessly curious, always wanting to know how things worked with the perpetual 'why'? And yes, I was the odd kid who actually liked the National Geographic videos shown in school. I'm dangerous, I tell you!
Never stop asking "why". Curiosity is the spark.Without it, I think that which has been humanity, would still be somewhere in the caves.
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