Questions

Why the emphasis to create? Everyday I am told by my society, my peers, that I need to speak out, to voice my opinions, to form meaning out of chaos or at least make someone laugh ironically. Facebook's "What's on your mind?". Blogger. MSN messenger status updates. Notes. Emails.

Even school. Essays, writing without generating original thoughts or language. Science lab reports. Activity evaluations. Graduation speeches. They credit us with too much thinking. All I want is to be entertained. I will pay for that entertainment with money I have not earned, and time I do not have.

Maybe, maybe this drugged lifestyle of consumption - physical wants like fashion and gourmet cuisine, tv series and movies and the latest fad - really isn't wrong. But what is wrong is the inequity in who gets to speak. Who gets heard.

Words unlock meaning but they also limit life. A construction worker may not write a novel but he may know more of suffering than a feeble intellectual would with all of his philosophical exercises. The desire to trap feelings or thoughts in inflexible words that join to phrases connected into sentences may distract us from the enjoyment of the event itself.

And yet, where would we be without abstract thought and reflection? How would we live with ourselves without justifications, explanations, rationalisations to make ourselves feel like there was a plan when all you did was set out in the wide unknown with an unreliable compass and an outdated map?

If I had the answers I'd give them to you. But I once learned that it was more important to ask the right questions than gain the answers to them. My only worry now is that the questions above aren't really the important questions, because they can't lead to anything. Maybe I should think more about questions like, "How can I make someone's life better?" and "How can I make my own life count for something?" and "What would be the best use of my time, right now?"

If I can answer those questions everyday, there isn't anything else to ask anymore.