The Most Important Question

When posed with this question: “What do you think is the most important question in life?”, it gave me time to pause and reflect. I certainly consider myself to be an introspective person, continuously attempting to peel back the layers of the proverbial onion. I spent an entire decade of my 20’s in a feeble quest to “discover myself “. Eventually finding the answers were blatantly lying right in front of my near-sighted eyes. I thought for sure within a few seconds I would have a brilliant, profound, if not brain-busting answer to this simple somewhat trite question. The truth was I stumbled through a runway of cerebral tangents, only to trip and fall down a rabbit hole of micro-questions to form a semblance of an answer to this question. Firstly, the word “most” implies that there are a multitude of questions swirling around in the cosmos of my infinitesimal wisdom from my lengthy 39 years on this rapidly dying planet. Perhaps, assuming that I have been cataloging and Dewey-decimaling my questions about life, prioritizing by importance, date of enlightenment or alphabetical order. As if my to-do list reads as follows: buy almond milk, get oil change, decide if I believe in Botox, add important life questions to notebook on iPad. My over-analytical brain went into overdrive, which is unfortunately is nothing new.

Placing my brewing cynicism in a box on a shelf for a moment, I thought about myself questioning the underlying reasoning behind the question was a way to avoid answering the question in the first place. By hiding my lack of depth in wordy, long winded, run-on-sentences in order to trick the questioner into believing I have given an answer, when in fact I have been word-bluffing with smoke and mirrors and dry humor. I arrived at my conclusion with smoke machine unplugged and mirrors blackened. Are you continuing to ask questions? That I believe to be the most important question in life. When one reaches a place of complacency and stagnation occurs, whether it be about others, life, your job, fellow man/woman, yourself, the government, a lover or your plastic surgeon. A continued perseverance to obtain a better version of yourself through exploration and inquisition is the spark of life in every individual. When the child-like curiosity deteriorates, halts or is deemed unnecessary you have arrived at a form of a spiritual death. You most certainly will not be alone at this juncture with the inherent laziness of our advanced society. We are encouraged to utilize fewer and fewer brain cells with spellcheck, a texting language of acronyms and self-flushing toilets. We are not generally assuaged to dig deep inwardly to arrive at personal epiphanies. No baby, mamma bird is chewing up our food and regurgitating it into our slack- jawed maw so we simply need to involuntarily swallow. (The cynicism box fell off the shelf). When one believes they have all the answers, that will be the day you are un-friended, call blocked and dispelled from my hula hoop of life.

The undiscovered creations which lie ahead are vast and limitless. The transportation and route you take to get there depends entirely on your cognitive prowess and the soul-bending, painstakingly relentlessness you agree upon with yourself: To never stop questioning.