Spend time with a child of the right age, and you’ll discover their obsession with the word “why.”

Why is the sky blue? Why do birds fly? Why don’t humans fly? Why is that person’s skin a different color than mine? Why is he sad? Why? Why? Why?

And then, one day, they stop.

We stop.

Where did our curiosity go?

The Strangeness of Asking Why: A Collection of Thoughts

When I was in high school, I quickly learned that if I didn’t know something it was better not to ask. To reveal my ignorance of something opened me up to the scorn of my peers. I learned this on the first day.

One of the boys made a joke. Yes, it was that kind of joke. Everyone snickered. I blinked, and I asked what he’d meant. Eyes turned to me, widening and sliding to look at each other. In that moment, I felt like I shrank three sizes and grew an alien antenna.

It was better not to ask than to look stupid in the eyes of my age group. So I stopped asking.

But life is confusing. Sometimes life exceeds my hopes and dreams but often I’m floundering, forgetting to breathe and wondering what I did wrong. Questions choke me out. Did I hope too much? Dream too big?

Do you forget to breathe too? Are you hanging upside down and blacking out because your lungs refuse to fill because your concentration is exact and total?

I do that sometimes.

Over a video chat a few weeks ago, I spoke my frustration aloud. Those gut cries were real and scary and vulnerable. Tears rose eye level. And I hated them because voicing these cries meant facing fear. What am I doing here? How did I get here? Where did I go wrong?

And my dear friend, my reoccurring mentor over eight years, listened.

She listened and then she asked, “Have you asked ‘why’? I think you need to access your curiosity.”

Hmmmm, why. Why. Why would I ask why?

A few years ago, I’d spent the day feeling sad. I remember one of my friends telling me to quit feeling sad and just choose to be happy. I tried. I really, really tried. I listened to happy music all day. I forced lips to frame my teeth like an upturned crescent…but my heart hung bounced against my kneecaps.

That night, I plopped into a chair by my housemate and described my sad. Her words stick all these year later, “Feelings are a thermometer.”

And so I did what any sane person would do. I went to my room, played the saddest music I could find, and cried. A funny thing happened. My knee-cap-height heart re-entered my ribcage.

Life is a weird, weird place. We constantly live in the tension of the present, falling through the past and stumbling toward the future.

I need to be present with myself, feeling and asking why.

Asking “why” offers a strange opportunity to view life in a new way. Sometimes, I like the answers. Sometimes I don’t. But when you ask why, you might discover a new way to live or a new goal to walk towards. Or you might be left holding your why in open-palmed hands, just breathing and waiting for understanding.

And that’s okay.

To the God of Because,

Like a baby bird, let me chirp my whys, hungry for your because. You know the world from the underside and overside. I know it from a thread fiber. Help me to sit in the why and invite the discomfort of the unknowing.

Does Asking Why Feel Strange? Have You Been in This Place Before? How Did You Handle It? What’s Your Favorite Ice Cream?