Why?

Why? I remember tracing the letters of that seemingly innocent question over and over again. I would mostly do this in class, in the midst of my high school and college years; I would write those letters, sometimes with my finger and sometimes with an un-clicked pen. Sometimes I would do this slowly and carefully, sometimes rapidly and repetitively, and while it may have been a sign of teenage angst I can not help but wonder ‘was there more to it than that?’'

It hit me while sitting in class one day at seminary, long since that angst should have disappeared, that I had just traced those letters again. I wondered about the sense I always had that the letters flowed delightfully as I made them, almost like the letters were meant to be together. These thoughts came to me during a philosophy class of all places and looking back I attribute this spontaneous renewal of doodling to an increase feeling of comfort in truly asking the question again.

Human beings by their nature are curious creatures, we ask why all the time. Often times however our culture reduces that curiosity to ‘why is this relevant to me?’ A kind of relativistic and cynical belittling of our innate curiosity that can make one feel free to only ask why when the answer is preprogrammed to fit our unique experience: why study this subject, why be nice to this person, why not expect something just for you? All of these self-focused questions can detract from the larger questions that we often feel powerless to answer: what is the meaning of it all, why are we here, where is the Truth in this? These questions by their nature take the asker out of themselves and into the realm of unburdened curiosity, a curiosity with an object of desire free of the restraints that our particular condition places on it. 

So why ask why? To truly ask why of course!