The Worth of A Question

Through the simple act of asking a question, you open yourself up to the opportunity for an answer to reveal itself to you that otherwise would have been left unknown and unanswered. 

An answer can present itself to you as an idea sparked in conversation, spontaneously through a vision or unexpectedly in a dream, or even in the form of another question. In this answer presenting itself to you, even if it’s not the answer you were hoping for or you suspect there may be another answer, that initial answer could be what provides the beginning of a new pathway forward towards knowledge and understanding. 

You can think about the process of question and answer as a kind of exploration: 

You begin along a path that has presented itself to you, hypothetically moving towards some destination, whether that destination be known or not. As you continue along this path, you explore and see what’s around you. There’s so much that you could explore, but there are certain things that grab your attention, and you hone your focus there. “What’s this? How does this work? Why is this here? How does this thing interact with this other thing? What does this mean? What can I do with it?” 

Where your attention has taken you may lead you on a slight detour or a completely different route all together. Along these new paths you encounter obstacles that lead you to ask yourself a completely different set of questions that may have been beyond your scope of imagination previously. Sometimes these obstacles are hurdles to be climbed over, other times forcing you to turn around and go back the way you came, returning right back to where you were. Having regained your bearings and after reassessing the situation, you continue your exploration elsewhere, having learned much valuable information along the way. 

Soon you find that you’ve made it. You’re where you wanted to go. Your exploration has led you here, whether that be to an open pasture or to the top of a mountain – you’ve made it. You take a minute to relish the moment and to be satisfied with yourself. That minute, however, is short lived, as you see all there is that’s still around you. The pasture opens up to six new paths you could take, there’s a mountain that’s even higher off in the distance, or you might even look back and say to yourself, “You know what, I liked where I came from a whole heck of a lot better.”

In all that you see there is one commonality – the need to take another step forward, to continue along some pathway – to continue the exploration. To continue the exploration is to open yourself up to new possibilities, to new opportunities and new obstacles – to new beginnings – to new questions. 

From the beginning, a question. A question that led to some answer. An answer that revealed the path forward towards some end that opened itself up as a new beginning – to new questions.

The question remains, “where to now?”