Questions that never have an answer
Sunday mornings can be complicated in our house. Whether I get a lie in depends upon the kid’s schedule. More often than not, you will find me running about, frazzled and confused again, taking my son off to his rugby match, freezing on the side of the pitch or going to pick up my daughter from her sleep-over. Sometimes though, I do get a bit of peace. On those days, I listen to the radio, sing along very badly to it and potter around. I rather like those days. I still have jobs to do but I can do them a little more slowly and with a little more thought.
One Sunday, as I prepped the dinner (a joy given that normally it is a race to see what I can get defrosted and throw together), over the radio came the comment ‘…and this week, some questions that never have an answer.’ It got the rusty cogs of my addled and sleep deprived parts of my brain turning.
The example questions that were put were ‘Why can you never find the TV remote?’, followed by ‘Why does the top of the ketchup bottle always get bunged up’. I laughed, realising that they are very pertinent. Our TV remote regularly disappears, even when I am the only person who has been using it. There can be days (not often) when I have been the only person in the house and still the TV remote will turn up in the most bewildering of places. As for the ketchup bottle, I regard it as a miracle if it is still functioning after three uses.
A few more simple questions that I would love someone to provide me with answers to are:
- Why does no one ever tell me when they have used the last teabag?
- Why when you are late does every traffic light you come to go red?
- Why is it always my clothes that end up at the bottom of the washing basket and never get washed?
And finally:
Why do I do the same things over and over again and desperately hope for a different outcome? Even though it never does. And I know that it won’t.
Then there are the bigger questions in life; the complicated, philosophical questions that if you think about too hard just end up giving you a headache:
- Why are we here?
- What were we born to do?
- Why do we die?
- Does grass feel pain if you step on it? (I got that one after searching Google. I know that I will now wonder how the grass is feeling every time I wander across the lawn).
Recently, we tried to do the perfect parent thing by giving the kids an inexpensive experience. This was to show them that doing enjoyable stuff should not cost an outrageous amount of money and can be fun. We took the kids out to a forest for a walk. We thought it would be good to amble along, pointing out the trees and the birds, whilst feeling the peace and the harmony of living things being as one together. I wanted to be mindful and feel that I was in the moment. I didn’t want to be reminded of the things that I had left at home, the emails to return, the problems to solve and the work to be done.
Whilst there, I asked my daughter to consider what I think is one of the greatest philosophical questions – if a tree falls in a forest but there is no one to hear it, does it make a sound? I’ve often considered this one. I don’t know the answer. Is sound only sound because you can hear it? Will the tree only be real because you can see it? Is there a difference between the way that something looks and how it appears? If you are not there, does the forest really exist at all?
As my daughter and I walked along, I pondered all of this again with her and asked her for her opinion. I thought that maybe she would have some insight that I was missing. I hoped to hear the genius answer that only the young can provide. Being 12, she rolled her eyes at me and told me that she hadn’t really heard any of what I had said. Frankly, she was more concerned that she couldn’t get a phone signal.
My son (14) grumpily informed me that he really didn’t know. He couldn’t see the point of the question either. Instead, he asked me what we were going to have for lunch and when were we leaving to get it. Feeling completely defeated, tired from trying to stop the bickering between the kids and starting to be rather hungry ourselves, we gave in and headed off for a quarter-pounder and fries.
I recently got asked the ‘why’ question by a friend. It was in the context of ‘why are you doing this?’ Truthfully, I don’t know. I feel as if I have been asking why for at least half of my life. I can’t answer it this time and I’m not sure that I ever could or if I ever will. Then again though, maybe I shouldn’t concentrate too hard on the why and just do the things that I want to do. I feel as if the ‘why’ is getting in my way and holding me back. It’s as if trying to work out the why is putting an obstacle in my way and preventing me from doing. Why do I need to work out why? Would it make a difference if I did? Sometimes this sort of interrogation of my own thoughts is just tiring.
I still want to know what the answer is to the question about the tree. I suspect though I never will as there are so many responses. Perhaps that is the thing about questions. It isn’t that they don’t have any answers; it’s that they have too many of them.
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