Erm, have we stopped asking questions?

Not to be a cliché but it really is a love language.

I am not a grammar whore,
but ask me a question and I am forever yours.

---

It is an act of love to be asked a question. Especially the questions that probe beyond your epidermis and soften your insides. It is not only the question itself that has meaning, but also the simple act of it. Being asked a question almost fires this knowing within you, that you are important, worthy of someone’s curiosity, that another being desires to know more than you have already spoken, that they want to find a resting place inside your mind and linger in the crevices of your heart.

When the bulk of our conversations are reduced to squashing Equator-sized thoughts into microscopic captions and fire emojis; the art of conversing suffers. There is a familiarity with making everything brief as the world moves at a pace that we can no longer keep up with. We have long shortened words from BRB to LOL. Dwindling attention spans make us play 10 minute videos on double speed. To believe in the construct of time is to believe that there is never enough of it. To believe that there is not enough time, begs the question of if there is even enough time to talk?

Well yes, we have made and sustained the time to talk about ourselves. From podcasts to newsletters. Instagram stories to TikTok's. We share our thoughts, reactions, vlog our days, the contents of the microbiome-loving bowls we have for dinner, detail our biggest traumas and review what we bought at the supermarket. We are doing plenty of talking. Sometimes talking at, but not always with. When we enter into online communication, it is often in response to or a reaction to something. Conversations sometimes progress. Sometimes they stop after the aforementioned fire emoji. So, where do the questions go?

insidehook

A post shared by @insidehook

I recently scrolled upon the above post, and the comments had as much gold as a weekend flea market. One user said, “I recently got the ol’ ‘you are so mysterious…’, by a man who talked about himself for about 3 hours.” Another mentioned their dismay that people are, “going through life just talking, never asking. Never curious.” While someone else poignantly remarked that she loves good questions as, “I want to be known by you, I want to feel your curiosity.”

Now, as you can imagine from my ongoing anthropological dating research, I have many things to contribute to this. I have been on some gorgeous dates where I was asked rich and moving questions. On others the questions skimmed the surface of politeness, with the usual pleasantries of small talk. The worst of them, there was not a single question uttered. It goes beyond the first date and well into relationships. I have spoken to people who care very little for a bouquet of flowers or another city break, and just want their partners to ask if they’re feeling inspired today or what have they read this week that touched their heart. They want to be asked more than how work was and instead, what about their work are they finding challenging at the moment. The gender-specificity here is irrelevant to me, I’m more interested in the act and art of asking questions more broadly. How it speaks to an interest in each other’s interior worlds in a world that favours the superficial.

This piece is asking if we have stopped asking questions, but it’s actually if we’ve stopped asking great questions. Questions that require vulnerability, interest and a space to answer and explore them together. We have all been on the receiving end of two very different kinds of “how are you?”, there’s the one that doesn’t actually want a real answer as we can feel the lack of interest in the monotone way in which they said it. The facial expressions are not one that suggests they care to hear anything more than, “I’m good”. It’s just easy, introductory chat. Then there’s the, “how are you?” with the emphasis of care embedded into the “are”. When that way of asking the question alone can incite a waterfall of tears as we know all that is charmingly implied by them even asking us.

I discussed this topic with someone before and while they said they were working on getting better at it, they also believed that you shouldn’t wait to be asked a question to say what you want to say. Some people assume that if you have something to share, you will share it unprompted. Yes, I agree that we shouldn’t hold our expression back or wait for permission, but have we forgotten that this is just how conversations go? We share, we ask, we listen, we reflect. Questions go answered, some of them don’t. Silence is a welcome third party. It isn’t a rigid interview but a conversation is one of curiosity and there is no curiosity in a conversation that is devoid of sufficient questions. At its worst it’s emotionally lazy and at its best it’s terribly boring.

Asking questions is an expression of love for not only each other but all that exists in life. It’s curiosity. The definition of which is a, “strong desire to know or learn something”. That’s why questions mean so much. It is a statement that someone wants to know you. To learn more about you. That they are interested in doing so. This isn’t just a self-interest buffet, where you take a hit of validation because you’re desperate to speak in response to being asked. It is the human desire to be thought of and in turn, to think of others. When we ask those questions with equal vigour, we are doing the same. You are declaring that you want to know another. When someone sits and ponders, gazing at you with curious eyes, allowing words to form based on how they perceive you and what they desire to know of you, there is untold beauty in that. Even more so, when you can see the excitement swelling in someone because they have so much they want to ask you.

During my conversation with someone I met yesterday, he used the word “bottleneck”, to describe the feeling he had of such enthusiasm and inquisitive interest based on what I said, that all of the questions landed in his throat. That there were so many questions he wanted to ask, that he didn’t know where to begin. I felt the same. The feeling that can only be derived from the desire to learn more about who someone is. To know them. When a thought they had or a single word sleeping in a busy sentence, suddenly holds you and sparks a million little thoughts and follow up questions. Isn’t that a part of our humanity, to be choked up by questions when we meet someone new as we imagine the chapters of the life they lived that brought them to this moment of colliding into yours. Whether it’s someone sitting next to you on the train or the barista you see each day, there’s a catalogue of questions beyond, “how are you?” to show that we see someone. Really see someone.

To expand this beyond just conversations with others, it’s also how we remain In Conversation with Life, as I call it. Where we are devoted to a life spent in presence, wonder, connection, and curiosity. I live within the bend and flow of the question mark, the soft squiggle of questioning, pausing at the end, reflecting and going back into another question. I would not call myself a seeker, for I am not always looking for an answer. I have found such delicious contentment and peace in being in rigorous process with life. To hang out in the question, dance with the unknown and revel in the pleasure of discovery.

Just take a look at the image of this question mark. Something you might see or use on a daily basis. Its presence in your life becomes so ordinary, that we don’t actually give much thought to its existence. We ask questions. We answer them. Some remain unanswered. But, really look at its shape. Get curious about the symbol. The soft squiggle I speak of, the curved edge, it has movement to it. A journey. A mini road to travel through. The space to live in contemplation of the question. To decide what the question is. To speak it. Then there’s a space. A space before the dot. A space for thought. A space for a response. A space to listen. To rest. Reflect. Then we see the dot, full stop, period. Maybe it’s an answer? The end of questioning or simply, as I perceive it, an invitation to decide. Deciding whether there will be an answer this time or a willingness to stay in contemplation and go back up into the squiggle.

How can living a life without ever questioning it, be a life that we can ever name as ours? When we question what we were told not to question, we allow a moment of reclamation to tap dance on our tongues. A choice is really only a choice if we live in the question of it, contemplate, reflect and move through all the possibilities of it. Then, whatever your answer. Even if there is no answer. At least you know it's yours.

There is such beauty in allowing questions to move through your body and travel within you without the expectation of it falling into an answer. It might be, “who am I?” or, “how am I?” even giving ourselves the chance to soak in the curiosity of it, is a precious gift that we get to bestow upon ourselves in the quiet of our days. We want to rush to an answer or knowing, but sometimes the most important thing is the desire to know ourselves.

When we think about the cultural expectations and norms of attaining a certain level of success in certain kinds of jobs, buying houses, getting married, and having children, the role of questioning allows life to expand beyond what we think we should be doing and into what we want to do. As I feel like I repeat in every newsletter, but saying it again, if you are new here:

“It’s just what people do”, doesn’t mean that you have to.

But, to even decide that, we must go into the questioning. I don’t challenge things for the sake of challenging it or to be “controversial”, I just refuse to believe that you can get to an answer without a process of questioning, especially when it has such a huge impact on your life or on many other lives. For example, it ruptures my brain when I hear some people’s reasons for wanting to have a child. From wanting a mini-me to dress up, to pushing them on a swing, or just because it’s what people do. Now, everyone’s reason is theirs and I respect its validity for each person, even if it makes not an iota of sense to me. But what bothers me more than the often banal reasons they give, is that there has not been any questioning to get to whatever that reason is.

No thought process of bringing another human being onto this planet. No inquiry. No curiosity about if it’s a biological response or just a conditioned one. Thoughts on intergenerational trauma. Overpopulation. The care economy or lack thereof. What you lose. What you might gain. How your life will drastically change. Your community. The idea that just as everyone may not have the temperament or skills to be a doctor or prime minister, not everyone has the temperament or skills to be a parent. Even just the questioning of how creatively nourishing a life without your own children might be.

The answer doesn’t have to be the opposite to the norm, but surely it’s important to at least spend some time exploring and questioning it, even if you still have the same answer as the one you started with?

Questions are also what makes this world feel even more juicy and sensational than it already is. To not be here with assumptions and falling into the habit of seeing things so many times that we no longer see its beauty. But, to ask questions of each day that we have the pleasure of greeting. We can ask why we have rainbows, why the sky is blue and grass green, why do snails move so spectacularly slowly, why is so much of the ocean unexplored, why do parrots talk?

We’re not asking because we can’t find the answer, we know that our entire way of being is Googleable. There are answers to all of these things. They are not existential questions with no answers to be found. That’s not how I’m asking them or how I’m inspiring us to ask them.

It isn’t the answer-seeking and fact-hunting, “I wonder why we have rainbows”, and discovering that it is caused by light striking water. We know why we have them. We know how it exists, but there is a difference when we are questioning its existence and how its existence makes us feel. It is the deep awe when you look into the sky on your way home and are greeted by the rare sight of one and think, “Wow, why do we have rainbows, isn’t it unbelievable and magnificent that we do?”

Why?

It is asking the questions that don’t need answers and finding some meaning just in doing so. As our connection to ourselves, each other, and nature grows further and further apart, we can’t afford to lose the beauty of curiosity. The wonder and heartfelt romance in just taking the time to think of, feel into and ask someone a question.

The giggling, hand flapping, cheeks raising excitement that comes from the desire to know and learn more about each other and this life is such a delicious thing; I hope we never forget it.

What are your favourite questions to ask people? What questions have you been asking yourself? Or, asking about life? Share in the comments.