WHY?

Did you know?


Whilst we are standing still, leg muscles and brain communicate to keep one balanced. Little muscle contractions take place without our knowledge. Now I know why I fall so easily. My GP explained it to me Wednesday. The communication between my brain and muscles is not good and part of my disease process. I like to know these things. 


I always ask WHY? It used to really piss off the nuns, teachers, parents, most adults. WHY? I am now 53 and still asking WHY? I hope I never stop.


One reason people hate people who ask WHY? is that it makes them very uncomfortable because 1. they have to think 2. it might show flaws in their thinking and 3.will show up the motive behind the thinking.


I have always been inquisitive. I was punished for it severely as a child, made to feel wicked and ashamed for it. I did not understand why. So of course I asked why!


I did not know that why? is a challenge that makes people very uncomfortable. Why? leads to the truth if you ask it often enough. We stop asking why? when the answers start to make US uncomfortable. It is at this point that give in, conform, and lose ourselves. Life becomes stagnant. But at least we feel safe. Or so we tell ourselves.


We abhor uncertainty. It is very frightening to us. We develop ideas that make us feel safe. We shut off why?and our thinking becomes black and white. Religion is a good example of this. The more the rigidity of belief, the frightened and the more powerless the fundamentalist feels and the more threatened by why? they become. This is not confined to traditional religion but also to New Age thinking and even scientific thinking. Just because one is a scientist does not make one immune to fear and the need for certainty can be just as strong as it is in religious fundamentalists.


WHY? led me to the excellent, happy life I now have. My mental, emotional, spiritual agony has been replaced by an acceptance of myself and the realisation that all that happened to me as a child happened because of who my abusers were and not because of who I am. This was my epiphany. This broke the chains that bound me. This gave me my life and freedom, as far as any one can be free. The agony I lived with for most of my life is indescribable but enough to say that I would not trade my pain wracked body for it! Meaning that although I am now in 24/7 pain, take 40 pills a day, am a wheelchair user, and cannot function well, I accept it because it is so much less painful than my previous mental/emotional/spiritual state.


I still ask why? Not just of others but of myself. It is important to ask why? of ourselves. It helps to us to get to know ourselves. If we do not know ourselves then we cannot know why we do what we do, feel what we feel. 


A simple example: there was a man I'd meet at the dog shows that I had a stronger aversion to, so much so, it bothered me greatly. At first it didn't, i just didn't like him. It was when this not liking grew into a strong dislike, that i started to question myself as to why because I could not give a reason. He had done nothing to deserve my reaction and it was not enough to say my 'intuition' told me he was a bad person. One day, the answer came. I saw him walking toward me and in an instant I saw not him, but the man who had caused me so much grief growing up. From that moment my antipathy toward this man melted away.


We don't always believe what we believe for the reasons we think we believe. no. We tend to believe what makes us feel comfortable.


I have one belief that makes me uncomfortable. It is one I cannot deny to myself. Experience and evidence is too strong to dismiss. I believe our consciousness survives physical death. I would rather this was not so but I  cannot deny it. It presents me with all sorts of difficulties, not he least of which is that I have very good reason to believe that religion is incorrect and that scientific knowledge is mistaken. I don't have the answers of course. I can believe something is wrong without having a better explanation. I jst know that our consciousness survives intact, the death of our bodies and WE continue to exist. Why? 


I do not know but I continue to ask why? I am at least in good company because no one knows why despite many protestations to the contrary! Scientist know that death is the end, and Fundies not only know, they know why and know the mind of God to boot! (Mind you, different Fundies KNOW differently! Would be very amusing if it did not cause such agony tot he human race.)