Questions

Some letters of the Challenge have left me wide open to dozens of topics, and some gave me some grief. I'm a little surprised that “Q,” of all letters left me with a tough decision between two topics. I thought that, perhaps, I would have an excuse to write about Qabala (also spelled 'Kabala' or 'Cabala,' but being a translation from Hebrew, with different letters and no vowels, the spelling is a point of preference.) The problem is that it's a huge topic, and it took me months with the most introductory books to begin to get my head around it. Putting that all into a blog post seems a little daunting, so I'll go with a second idea.

On Sunday, I had a chance to talk a bit with Kyle, who works with me, and plays in a metal band I enjoy (check out Breach and Entry on MySpace!) He had posted a Note on Facebook about how he didn't believe in Fate of “Soul Mates,” and my take was, “the jury's still out, so I'll argue the point from the other side. He took it like I meant it; more academic than contentious. Sadly, we couldn't settle the issue on my 30-min lunch break ( :P ), but it was fun to address the topic with a like-minded person. He honestly wanted to hear another perspective, with a full understanding that someone else might have some information that could influence his opinions. It was the Questions that were important, since the facts in this case were out of reach.

This reminded me of something from my childhood. In my French class (the language, not the kissing method. Our education system left us to figure that one out on our own.), our teacher had pictures on the wall to illustrate certain words. The picture for “Smart” had a boy & girl asking questions. This didn't make much sense to me (I was 12 or 13), and figured that smart people naturally had answers. It took years to realize that the truly intelligent people were the ones who kept asking questions; pretty abstract for me at that age (other students seemed to understand, but they could have just been nodding along. Or I was a late-bloomer. Wouldn't be the last example of that...).

Since then, I've remained grateful for one of the most amazing gifts we've been given: a reasonable mind with the ability to question what we've been presented with.

“When they think they know the answers, people are difficult to guide. When they know they don't know, people can find their own way.” Tao Te Ching