Putting a question correctly is one thing and finding the answer to it is something quite different. —Anton Chekhov—
Questions and answers lie within us. Unfortunately, they don’t come in match sets, numbered or colored-keyed so we can match them up. Sometimes we think we have all the answers and we wish we knew the questions.
In fact, the questions are the most difficult to find, especially the questions that have to do with our deepest feelings. What do we want? How do we feel about it? Such questions threaten to expose us—to lay bare our vulnerable selves.
For once we acknowledge we want something, we risk not getting it. But if we can remain deaf even to question, we protect our vulnerability. The other side of that, of course, is that we’ll never get what we want until we acknowledge that question. We must work to choose the risk of hearing the wrong answer over the certainty of deafness.
Is lack of pain worth shutting down my capacity for pleasure? Let me strengthen myself to risk joy.