Recently, a former girlfriend informed me that she is in The Netherlands. That news came as a blunt surprise and I asked her: Why did you inform me? I told her I preferred not having this information. Why did I prefer not knowing? I fear that she may still have an impact on me.
So, why did I bother to ask my question?? On the one hand, I feared her answer. Yet my curiosity is nearly always stronger than my fear. I need and want to understand as I believe in understanding, which is essential in my life. Curiosity is either a love for knowledge (positive) or interfering in other people’s affairs (negative).
My love for asking the Why question may even explain why I became an auditor as the Why question is key in that profession. This thought never occurred to me before. However, loving the Why question may result in hating its answer. I still remember asking my former partner several times “But Why??” She struggled to keep the truth from me. Her final answer hurt me too much.
Given the above, the Why question triggers one of two primal emotions: Fear or Love. Also see my 17 May 2016 blog: Human Emotions (2) – a revisit. Yesterday’s blog showed that the Why question is either explained by randomness (eg, butterfly effect, chaos theory) or by destination (eg, fate, karma). Both are connected through the fear and love that life has an (unknown) meaning. The usual result is either Atheism (fear, randomness) or Faith (love, destination).
Often we do not want to know the answer to a Why question as we fear its answer. Why did a loved one die at a young age? The answers typically correspond with the former paragraph: randomness versus destination. We may not like both answer and prefer to be angry (eg, Supreme Being). I do not believe that death is like a losing lottery ticket (ie, randomness). Nevertheless, destination is also a tough answer to accept (eg, time is up, purpose ran its course). Still, I prefer the latter because it’s easier to accept.
An answer to Why may cause Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and ultimately Acceptance, or DABDA, the 5 stages of processing grief as developed by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. Understanding the meaning of things is key in Acceptance. Attributing randomness to things is casting doubt rather than bringing acceptance.
The Why question is related to the Needs, Wants & Beliefs stages in Life. Human consciousness classifies us in the Beliefs stage and separates us from other living organisms which are either in the Needs (e.g., plants, trees) or in the Wants stage (e.g., birds, monkeys). Humans either believe that we have a purpose (Faith) or believe that everything is random (Atheism).
Human consciousness made us aware of the vast interconnectedness in Universe, Nature and Life. It’s extremely unlikely that interconnectedness is random as both are opposites. Hence, the existence of interconnectedness made us believe that this phenomenon must be part of something bigger. The search for the meaning of Life – or Why – is deeply ingrained in humans.
The Creator has a Master Plan (1995) by Brooklyn Funk Essentials
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