Friday, October 16, 2009

an odd thought

So I just had an odd thought while doing my Judaism reading, but it isn't a very complete one, if that makes sense. But it makes sense to me as far as it goes, and I rather feel like sharing it for a few reasons, the main one perhaps most easily said through the bromide of "two heads are better than one"--I'm interested in your thoughts on my Random Odd Thought.

As I said, this thought occured to me while I was doing reading for my Judaism and the Gospel class. How it came to me was this: I was reading an article which, in short, said "This is the way things were done". Then I got to the next section of the article, which was attempting to answer (or simply discussing the question of)--Why?

Why? All the way through the article up to that point I hadn't really thought to ask this question. What was being said made sense with what I knew and had read elsewhere, and the question of why things were that way hadn't really occured to me. In the back of my mind, almost far enough back that I didn't fully realize I was having this thought, came the words: Why (heh) didn't you ask why? The article seems to assume that readers should be asking this question. Almost before I realized I was asking myself this question, the answer arrived almost right on top of it. Because you're not a person who asks why. You're a person who asks how.

This answer is what brought the original mostly-subconcious train of thought to the front of my mind. But it made sense to me. Some people ask why--the most obvious group to point out would be scientists, or people who think like scientitsts. Instead, I ask how. This question is a bit less inquisitive and more active, it seems. Though the questions are really very similar--if you ask why something happens you will usually get a very similar answer to the question of how something happens--but its the feeling behind them that is different.

And then I was thinking, what if we all have our different questions? To some who? is more important, to others, why? where? what? when? or how?.

I rather liked this odd thought as it occured to me, but I also have this feeling that it...isn't complete. So I come to my blog readers. Do you have any thoughts on my thought?

(My computer crashed during the writing of this entry. My first frustrated thought wasn't, why did this happen? but rather how do I keep this from happening again?. And then I thought about it, and laughed to myeself.)

3 comments:

emily jean said...

Sarah, can I just say how much you make me laugh. I am going to have to think on your odd thought and get back to you.

Sherri said...

Yes, the questions indicate the angle of thought...and you are wise to bring up the action quality of the "why" question...

My dad used to say, "small minds talk about people, medium minds talk about events, and large minds talk about IDEAS." This entry is your large minded thoughts on the question orientaion...as an invitation to enlarge the reader's mind....

Unknown said...

To BE or NOT to Be, that is the question.