The why of why.

"Why?" is an important question.

It lets us look backwards at the situation and try to see what happened to produce the current situation. It also is one of those questions that children learn very quickly, and learn to ask recursively.

When I was a kid, I often got "I don't know" as an answer to "Why?" and soon had to figure out my own way to learn the answers, not only in the pursuit of knowledge, but also in the pursuit of avoiding the dire fate that awaits most overly inquisitive kids.

What's wrong with knowing how things work? It gives us insight into how other things work, and lets us have our own understanding of the world. Science can be thought of as the application of "Why?" to everything, recursively. Think about it; science also involves faith in some part. Just because one person says something doesn't make it true, there's a whole course of experimenting rigorously, over and over, and then there has to be acceptance under scrutiny in the community, so you have to have take for granted that the community is responsible. Furthermore, once you come up with an explanation, you really have to question each step in the reasoning process, until you go far back enough that you're at the basics, you reach a level you have an understanding of, or you take it on faith that it's true and the facts are there.

Life also involves many instances of "Why?" "Why am I failing school?" "Why did my girlfriend dump me?" "Why do I have to deal with my problems?" "Why are we having pizza for dinner?" The trick is to learn when to follow up on these questions, and when to take it on "faith" that there's a reason. Let's deal with the former first.

"Why?" gives us an opportunity to reassess our situation. We can learn to see where things went "wrong" and where we can improve our views, actions, and selves so that they don't occur again. "Why am I sick?" is a great instance of this. Doctors will go step by step to see where the problems are and how to remedy them. The problem is that there will be times where we can't go back and find an answer. Either we just don't see where the problem is, or we're not the ones who caused the problem, or things were just always the way they are now, and there was no place that something went "wrong." What to do then?

The word "faith" has a lot of baggage, baggage I won't open and examine today. What I mean to say is that logically, we need to just let things be. When I say have faith, I don't mean believe in "God's plan." I mean that ultimately, you may not find an answer, and that's okay. You don't need to have an answer to everything, do you? Despite not remembering who said it, Darrell passed on to me a quote. It boils down to "humans have a tendency to name everything, as if it helps them understand better." Things happen that we can't account for, and that we cannot comprehend. It happens. Sort of like a "butterfly effect." To quote Vonnegut, "So it goes."

The thing we need to bear in mind is that despite having circumstances that we had no control over, we adapt. We did it at birth, and we did it while growing up. What's so different now, that we have abandon that completely? At the risk of jeopardizing my entire point, I will do something I don't do often: oversimplify. There are two paths people take to wrestle with life. On the first, people accept that they don't have control over everything, but struggle when they have complete control over something. On the second, people can't handle not having complete control over things, even when they recognize that control isn't absolute. On the first path, people struggle over their actions when they see that they're responsible directly for their repercussions, but relax when circumstances take care of things. On the second path, people struggle with the fact that they can't control many important decisions, but are comfortable in their own abilities when the control does come to them. Neither quite works.

We have to learn when to ask the questions, and when to listen for answers. We also have to learn that we can work and adapt without answers, because sometimes, the answers aren't that important. The Buddhists have a parable of a monk tending to wounded soldier. The soldier cries out in pain, asking "Where did I come from? What is my purpose? Why is the world the way it is?" The monk politely reminds him that in order to answer these questions, he has to have his wound tended to, so he should be asking where the hospital is. An interesting moral.

It's necessary to have something that allows you the ability to take a step back, unattached and unswayed by the things that happen to you, and to take as objective of a stance as you possibly can. Every once in a while. Too often and you'll lose you're grip on what's going on in your life; not often enough and you'll go crazy wondering "Why?" Life's like any other action: you have to learn how to do it. To what degree depends on how much distraction you have to put up with.