Unanswered questions

If you believe Stephen King, it is the unanswered questions of life that make it worth getting up in the morning.  To someone creative, an open ended, unanswered question presents thousands of possibilities to express yourself. If, however, you are like most of us, struggling to get through life on an even keel, unanswered questions are annoying to say the least.  Many have said the unanswered questions of life are the really important ones.  I don’t know about that, I still struggle with algebra and it doesn’t seem that important to me.  Still, the ones about my inner self, my emotions, my motivations and my triggers are endlessly frustrating, totally fascinating and exceptionally slippery to get a hold of.

I’ve come to the conclusion that Tennesee Williams had it correct when he said “Life is an unanswered question, but let’s still believe in the dignity of the question”.  Whilst this all may sound like it’s going to sail a little too close to cliches like ‘Life isn’t about the destination. It’s about the journey,” it won’t.  What the quote hints at, is that life is full of unanswered questions.  To know oneself well is a difficult task.  What is important is not to always find the answers to difficult issues, but to keep asking the questions.  When you seek to know and understand yourself, you are living in hope. In dignity.

Some unanswered questions

I struggle with a few unanswered questions. I wonder why Sourdough bread ever went out of fashion and why it took so long to come back.  Why are there so many selfies of people cluttering the internet?  It concerns me that reality television is still a thing?  And why isn’t the inventor of soft soap world famous?  The thing about these sorts of questions though, is that they don’t generally keep me awake at night or challenge my opinion of myself.  I can live with not knowing.  The same can’t be said about aspects of myself that I don’t understand.

An example of this is that I have always wondered why I am so eager to have the approval of the people in my life, and it must be said, why I get it all so terribly wrong sometimes.  I have wondered why criticism always strikes me harshly and why it often triggers a dark mood.  I have even been concerned that the smallest criticism will lead to the breakdown of relationships somehow.  

An answer of sorts

I am a man of a certain age.  I have lived and struggled with these persistent questions about myself for a rather long time.  This has meant that while I haven’t come to a precisely worded answer about the questions I have yet, I have grown wiser nonetheless. I know now for instance that everyone won’t always like you, no matter how many chocolates you give away.  I know that the opinion of my wife, children and close friends about important things like my character, generosity, service and love are important.  It is conversely not so important if my wife doesn’t like sourdough or thinks the inventor of soft soap was an idiot.  She isn’t going to leave me over a difference of taste. Variety, as they say, is the spice of life.  If everyone was the same, how boring.  

Even though I know more about these things than I used to, my low self esteem and imperfections are still easily triggered by my critical self sometimes.  I realise that I need to learn to be less critical and like myself for who I am more often. It is okay that I don’t know how to do that quite yet.  I say ‘yet’ here because I know that even if I don’t fully figure it out, I get closer day by day.  Learning that important things like this take time is a comfort as I age. Wisdom and greater self knowledge are aspects of ageing to look forward to if I keep searching.  Think of anything from nature that we as humans consider precious and none of it appears overnight.  Even a mango takes six months.

Sitting with it

Regulars on this blog will know that social media and the instant nature of modern society are some of my favourite topics to whine about.  The reason for this is that they take our focus away from what is real and refocus it on an image instead.  Truth isn’t something you struggle to know, it isn’t something that happened, rather it is something you airbrush and post.  The meaning you give an event online is your choice it seems. Even the most miserable person can appear online like they live in Fairy Floss land if they want to.

This is why learning to sit with your life questions is such an important skill to work on.  I know that some will say ’What about those moments when everything just clicks and you get it?’. To which I say that those moments when everything becomes suddenly clear, like an epiphany, are usually the end of a lot of inner turmoil, questioning and self work.  My depression diagnosis felt a little like an epiphany, simply because at that moment it all made sense.  Rather than coming out of the blue, it came into focus.

Like being lost

The thing about unanswered questions that are difficult, is that because finding an answer is tough, it sometimes feels like you are getting nowhere. That you keep turning up at the same roundabout time after time.  Learned habits, that negative inner voice and negativity are so regular that they often feel like the path of least resistance.  You find yourself being self critical before you’ve even noticed. 

This is another reason why it takes time to find an answer.  You need to retrain yourself to be determined to keep looking.  You need to research and sometimes you need to ask for professional help.  I can’t tell you how many times my Psychologist pulled me up for repeating the same negative sentence in different ways.  I wasn’t even aware I was doing it.  Her help has enabled me to be more aware of my thought patterns and negative inner voices. Slowly I am finding an answer. It isn’t easy, but it is fascinating.

Today’s homework

The essence of this message is that it is okay to be less than perfect.  It is fine to not have all the answers all the time.  Don’t believe the hype.  People aren’t as together as they make out on the socials.   Instead, accept that you are a work in progress and worth the effort to keep searching for answers.  What gives life dignity….what gives you dignity in your struggles is that you don’t give up asking yourself the hard questions.  It is the only way to find the best answer.

P.S According to Google, softsoap was invented in 1980 by Robert R Taylor. He made a packet and then sold the idea to Colgate

By the way…

Robert Taylor, Inventor of Hand-Pumped Softsoap, Dies at 77 – YouTube

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