Something that has puzzled me of late is why we humans persist in asking questions that we have no intention of having answered. We posit a question when we have already fashioned a desired result. Our quest for the answer is a quest of self-satisfaction. We gather data to secure our "hidden" position. So, was it a question we ask at all? Or is it just a complex way of rationalizing our choices, choices most often poorly informed, pushed by intuition, which is another way of saying, pushed by personal ambition. Don't get me wrong, I am not here to argue against personal ambition. However, if we ask in earnest, then personal ambition can play little part in the quest for an answer. It what we crave is truth, rather than justification, then we can hardly carry our little egos along the quest. That is a scary place for many of us to be. But I find it's the place of certain victory. Scary because it requires living in the unknown, admitting to unknowing, with no clue where the road might lead. Its surrender to the process and submission to the answer. I would reckon it a mark of the greatness of man that can become so small as to journey through the darkness, in faith, submitting to an end that cannot be foreseen. But what adventure. Asking a question that we are intent on affirming our answer to is akin to setting sail around your own pool as if it were some magnificent quest. I grew discouraged in the past because I was that "large" man, asking the question when I was sure I had the answer. Discouraged because the quest was really rather drab, as would be shoving about a boat in your own pool, the end anti-climactic and the results of the application, predictable. It has always seemed to me that much of our industry was just as "noble" as I, intent on calling it a journey, a breakthrough, a mind-altering innovation when we hadn't even walked off our little patch of land.Today, regardless of what is going on, I haven't an ounce of discouragement. As a matter of fact, I am as energized and excited as ever. For if I am ruthlessly committed to doing it right, (not doing what I want) and in each instance learning what that might be, I can't but emerge from these stormy times ahead of my business "foes" that are busy asking the same questions, intent on once again discovering their same solutions. I don't care where I get the answer, who comes up with it so long as I get it. Nor do I care if I'm critiqued of my questions. A day has little option but to be exciting under these conditions. And failure is impossible unless I let someone, even myself, define what that might be. Who is "he" to define failure when to me it's just another rung upon the ladder to "success". Who am I to define failure when I might only be one step away from the solution? Columbus might have called his voyage a failure for he didn't reach his end, but his destination was much greater than his own ambition.
Comments
Nice. Your deep thoughs reflect the way a lot of us feel and conduct our lives. Keep it up.