Lines and Lines of Questions

Posted by on Apr 8, 2013 in careers, job search, Uncategorized | 0 comments

Lines and Lines of Questions

Immediate answers are a trick.

And their cutest trick is to make us think they are instant when in reality even the most immediate answers come from long, long lines of questions.

Lines, strings, chains, streams, paths, roads, cycles, flows, trains and planes and galaxies of questions.

There are no immediate answers.

Immediate answers are a trick.

Sometimes lines of questions are very long.

These long lines can reach way, way back to the past.

Sometimes the question string or stream is shorter. Often the path of questions follows an offshoot, tributary, smaller road or turn we took from a well-travelled path.

However it feels, instant answers don’t just strike you. They don’t come out of nowhere. Answers that move us take their time but it’s all to easy to forget this or, worse still, ignore it.

Waiting for answers can be agony. An answer’s moment of arrival can become something we crave. Answers are like cerebral chocolate after all. They are ice cream for the hungry kid in our mind.

Answers feel good. They satisfy. They fulfil. If we have to wait for answers it feels like something’s wrong. We’re in limbo, anxious, frustrated. It’s not a nice place to be and the discomfort is real enough.

Questions lead to answers.

Questions come before even the most immediate of answers but, questions can be tricky too. Sometimes, questions don’t come easy. They aren’t always clear or kind. They don’t always come at the right time.

Why is it so easy and so comforting to jump to conclusions rather than sit or stay with questions? Why is it so hard to stick with questions? After all, aren’t questions far more friendly to us than instant answers? Aren’t they much less likely to turn on us, desert us or leave us lost?

Yes, questions are uncomfortable. Yes, they can be scary. And, Yes, lines and lines of questions can be the last thing we want to see but questions are the route.

A question is the only way to an answer that finally makes sense. The only way to answers that last over time. The only way to answers that feel right in our bones.

We all want answers but there is also beauty in long, long lines of wonderful questions. Endless trails of beautiful questions to explore.


[Image courtesy of rocket ship on Flickr.com]
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