...have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not look now for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day.
—Rainer Maria Rilke
The Question Of "Questions"
As a child, I always asked questions but in most cases the answers could be found in my red bounded set of encyclopedias — The Book of Knowledge. Now, however the answers to my life questions are not as easily located.
It’s 3:03 in the early morning. This is usually the time I leave my world of dreams and enter into my waking thoughts. I have been pondering this question of “questions” for a few days now. The word procrastinate also fits. I knew once I started with the initial questions many possibilities would arise and I was not sure I wanted to deal with them all right now.
I usually avoid “what if...” or “why” questions. The hypothetical removes me from the truth of “what is...”— a state in which I am more comfortable. Questions themselves are like satellites, floating around in my head — mind worms clogging the neurocircuitry of my brain, preventing the growth of any new thoughts until they are cleared.
It’s time to jump in, head first and face those demons and boogymen/women. My initial question to get things moving is:
If all possibilities exist, am I living the life I choose to live?
Am I living in the place I want to live?
Where would I choose to live if not here?
Am I happy where I am?
What would have to change for me to live the life I choose?
How would I alter my living situation?
Would I stay in my relationship or choose to be alone?
What is it the I get from solitude that I don’t get in relationships?
Am I destined to be alone?
Would I welcome that?
Why can’t both coexist?
Why am I living in a home where I don’t feel wanted?
Does love really win in the end?
Have I accommodated my situation as far as I can?
Can I give more?
Do I want to give more?
Why do I not felt comfortable here?
What have I done for her son to despise me so?
Why won’t she talk to me about him?
Why does she leave the room every time I bring him up?
Does she not see he’s tearing us apart?
Why doesn’t he want me here?
What have I learned?
What more is there to learn?
Have I gained anything from being here?
Are other factors in my life contributing to this quagmire I am feeling?
When will I return to being me?
Will “what is” ever be enough for me?
What do I really want?
Am I giving it to myself?
Why are my needs so little and my dreams so hugh?
Should I stay or should I go?
Where would I go?
Am I doing what I want to do?
What do I want to do?
Can I do what I want to do here?
Is this boogyman/woman bigger than life?
How deep is this hole I’m digging?
Can I face all the possibilities?
Are there too many?
Have I detoured from my heart’s path?
Do I really know what it is?
Photo Credit: Question Marks