Questions are a way of listening to one another and showing interest. But not every question awakens the other person’s interest.
For some, certain questions aren’t really “their” questions, either because they already know the answer or have figured it out for themselves or because they don’t find the question particularly interesting or relevant. How can I tell the difference? How do I know whether a question touches me or not? What makes it moving, and what makes it boring?
The Real Question
Some questions open up a new perspective; they contain an element of tension; they are stimulating and electrifying and prompt reflection and introspection. They hold some kind of secret, hint at something, and leave a trail. Other questions lack this aura: they remain within the familiar or conventional; they don’t cross a threshold nor do they bring us up to the brink of one. It’s as if this kind of question proceeds from an implicit premise that is no longer being questioned. They have taken something for granted and don’t venture into the unknown.
It depends on the question itself—its starting point—and it also depends on who is asking which question to whom, how it is asked, and when. In a given situation, the question may also arise as to why that particular question is being asked of that particular person at that particular moment. One question leads to another, perhaps giving rise to the real question—and that is when things get interesting.
There are questions that cut deep into me, that seek to convict or expose me. There are rhetorical questions and those that appear innocent but harbor some kind of poison. There are genuine, loving, warm questions—questions that are attentive and perceptive, that strike at the very core— and questions that aren’t really about an answer or at least not an immediate one. Rather, the very fact that the question is asked at all, that this particular question is noticed, is already a kind of salvation. There are questions that contain a whole universe—and those that swallow it up. There are questions that I must answer with my whole human being—as the person who I am—to which I can only react as ‘I’, and there are those where I am not the only one being asked, but which concern humanity as a whole. And lastly, there are intersections where ‘I’ and “You” meet.
Questions Are Organs
The idea of repeated lives on Earth may serve as an example of the role of questions and the direction in which they are posed. It makes a difference whether I approach the idea by asking how exactly one incarnates multiple times or how I could possibly know such things. Or I can approach it by asking: What would it mean if this were so? How would I then live? Would I view my life and its conflicts, pains, or potentials differently? Questions draw attention to counter-questions: What sense would it make to no longer be able to take up all that has been started, all that is left unfinished, or all that failed to exist? Does this not contradict the rational way we lead our lives, their continuity and sustainability?
Take as another example the question that basic income initiatives place at the center of their campaigns: What would you do if your income were guaranteed? While this question makes certain presuppositions, the premise is so unfamiliar, indeed, so utopian, that it immediately leaves the mind in a state of bewilderment and astonishment, opening up a new perspective on the relationship between work and wages. Similarly, the idea of karma and rebirth offers a new outlook on morality.
Some questions arise solely from our minds, our own cleverness and calculations. They are the result of processes of combination, much as detectives solve cases. Artificial intelligence ultimately works like this kind of investigator. But questions that arise from intuition are also needed: questions that seem to come out of nowhere, from a kind of surrounding or resonant space—perhaps even from the heart. Before the question perceives itself, it has perceived something else, and because it does not know what this other is—for it has only noticed that it has noticed something or noticed that it finds something noteworthy—it asks. By becoming conscious that I have perceived something I cannot categorize—that it doesn’t have a file in my internal archive, no memory of comparable experiences—then suddenly, I become creative. I become pregnant with something not yet definite, not yet graspable. I have conceived this unknown thing and bear it within me, but I do not yet know it. The question forming inside me is also the very organ through which I shall understand the answer to this question. My question has meaning only in that it is really the question of an emerging other—the being to whom I address the question. That other being seeks to be born into the world, and I am the one who bears that being forth. The question is actually the other being’s question, not mine. I merely bring the question of that other being to consciousness, bearing witness to the question and thus the being who is coming newly into the world. I serve that other being as an intermediary, as an organ of perception through which it can become aware of itself and enter the world.
The need to see gave rise to the eye; the need to hear, to the ear; and the need of creative beings to not be alone in the world, to humanity. It is another human being who makes me a mother or a father—not I myself. Another human being makes me the answer to their question. But I do not know the answer; I do not know what I am the answer to. I remain open, questioning. I do not know what is right, what is true, what I should say or do.
We live for no other reason than to discern the reason why we encounter each other.
Translation Joshua Kelberman
Photo Nikolas Green, Unsplash
