Questioning Ourselves

What makes us unique as animals is our ability to think. That is, our ability to ask ourselves questions about the world, and things in it, and create new information that answers those questions. We look at the sea and ask ourselves, "How can I cross this?" and from that question, the idea of a boat is born. "How can I feed myself, and my family?" and the ideas of hunting and farming are born. "How can I be happy?" and many the many ideas that make a life are born.

However, the real power of asking oneself questions doesn't come to pass until one begins to question oneself. Until that point comes, we are simply using this amazing tool of thinking in a reactive way, to satisfy primitive needs and live the lives of enhanced animals. "How can I defeat my enemy?" is asked, and new weapons are devised for this purpose. For an animal, defeating one's enemy is a matter of survival. However, for a human, it eventually becomes a recipe for disaster.

It is when we ask ourselves questions like, "Why is it so important for me to defeat my enemy?" or "Why does it make me so angry when I lose an argument?" or "Why do I feel the need to judge others?" that we make the leap from enhanced animal to divine being. At that point, we create for ourselves a power of choice that no other animal has ever even conceived of. We can put aside our instincts and operate on a higher plane of being. We not only learn ways to live with the enhanced power our thinking capacity has harnessed for us, we also transcend the confines of an animal nature to live lives that only our imagination could conceive.

When we learn to question ourselves, we gain our true humanity, and our greatest potential.

Jim