For me, the questions are more important than the answers; but I can understand how for some (perhaps most?) the answer trumps the question. I believe though, that for many this latter perspective may encourage a passive acceptance of easy and/or forceful answers, discouraging additional, deeper questioning.

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.
     –Rainer Maria Wilke;  German Poet/Writer; 1876 -1926. 

Last week I said “If there were no questions, there would be no opportunity for peace; or goodness; or compassion; or responsibility; or hard work. If there were no questions, I could not account for the imperfections of my Humanity.” I will never attain perfection in any form in this Life, but because there are no absolutes, and because there is no certainty, there must be a process of thoughtful questioning, gentle (or not-so-gentle) probing, and thorough analysis that will aid in understanding one’s imperfections; a process that will push or pull us ever-closer to an understanding of peace (through turmoil), goodness (through selfishness), compassion (through suffering), responsibility (through complacency), hard work (through discretionary quiescence), and Truth and Wisdom (through our Humanity).

This week I have stumbled into more than one circumstance in which I was expected to react with a passive acceptance. When I attempted to question the status quo I was met with disbelieving condescension and (in one case) blatant disgust over my attempt to understand. These were organizations (represented by individuals) that apparently believed they had found perfection. 

This week I am reading ‘The Accidental Universe’ by Alan Lightman; a collection of essays on the “many universes within our one universe.” In his essay on ‘The Symmetrical Universe’ he points out that nature’s affinity with symmetry “is a result of economy and mathematics,” whereas our human affinity with symmetry is a result “of psychology and aesthetics.” He goes on to say (attributing this to art historian, Ernst Gombrich) “that although human beings have a deep psychological attraction to order, perfect order in art is uninteresting” and (2 pages later) that “slight asymmetries announce themselves only against the background of symmetry.” I would apply this to this week’s written thought by altering the last quote to read ‘imperfections announce themselves only against the background of the possibility of Perfection,’ and interpret the previous quote to confirm that Perfection in any form will quickly become boring. Questions are not boring. Questions substantiate the impossibility of Perfection. Questions are dynamic. Questions are necessary. Questions should not be dismissed. And if you have no questions, find some.

I believe this to be a good spot in which to insert the following from the post ‘A Fool for Happiness‘ written in December 2012:

Yea, though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Fools
I will fear no folly; for thou art fools with me.
Thy nod and thy laugh, they comfort me.
We preparest a stable disparity in the presence of mass obedience.
They disjoint our heads with feckless toil; yet my thoughts runneth over.

Surely I shall follow Wisdom and Truth all the days of my life,
and I will seek the house of Happiness forever.

At this time and place in this Life, I do feel the Fool. I stumble daily, (some days hourly), but there is some sad comfort in that (acknowledged or not) ‘thou art fools with me.’