The Social Network Of Questions & Well-Being
Questions! Questions! And more questions!
Let’s invite some of them over a cup of tea. Send a friend request to some of them.
When we meet a new person, what do we do? We spend time with them, talk to them and ask about their whereabouts, their backgrounds.
How about spending time with questions and learning more about them and their backgrounds? Which minds have they travelled to? Did they make some friends (thinkers) on the way who gave them some shelter? And wrote about them?
Hmmm! Questions feel like nomad travellers.
Moving in a caravan (with other questions).
And because they are in a caravan (crowd), we don’t see all of them.
Moving from one mind to another.
The world of questions is fascinating. There are explicit questions. There are implicit questions. There are questions whose answers keep changing with different context and person and different times. Then there are questions whose answers seem to be out of our grasp. There are questions we keep asking to others (they sort of become our entourage when we meet people).
A few days ago, I felt a void.
Actually it was “avoid”.
I was avoiding some things.
I was avoiding some questions.
But, why was I avoiding them?
Actually the answer is “autopilot”.
I realized that I was on autopilot.
Of usual questions and usual answers.
Aren’t we on several autopilots?
Like habits, biases, aping, and more...
The question (ahmm! Question again) is, “how do we realize that a certain autopilot is adversely affecting us?
Perhaps it is time that we spent more time understanding questions deeply. Understanding something often requires patience and inner reflection. And patience requires us to slowwww dowwwwn.
Breathe. Deeply Breathe. Hold. And let it go.
A #DailyTinyAct to shortly focus on our breath, coming to the present moment, and then offering our undivided focused attention to the question at hand, can lead to miracles.
Who knows, perhaps we may end up answering 20 questions at once by answering a single question effectively...deeply.
Think about that for a moment. This can be worked out by a step by step process listed below.
STEP 1 : When feeling void/“something is not right”, become aware that you might be on an autopilot.
STEP 2 : Take note of how it is making you feel. Name the feeling(s).
STEP 3 : Do you recognise the feeling? What kind of thoughts does it bring up?
STEP 4 : Some of those thoughts could be questions. List them all down.
STEP 5 : Create a question map (like a mind map), where you see the main question(s), and its branches.
STEP 6 : Which of these (Sort of Goldilocks Principle in Science) REALLY need to be answered? Why?
This process can help bring clarity around where we truly are. What is it that we are illuminating with our awareness.
During the process of befriending the caravan (or social network of questions), we shall also realize that, “Questions are embedded in questions, and answers are embedded in answers.”
And that a man is known by the questions he keeps.
And to stretch it further, a man’s well-being is known by the questions he keeps.
#NationalStayingWithQuestionsDay
