Why asking deep questions leads to a richer life
I’ve always been obsessed with the deep questions.
But I’ve also felt ashamed of spending too much time thinking about them.
These types of questions generally lead you to more questions than answers.
And so this work can end up having no “practical” value.
What’s the point of understanding the nature of time while you’re trying to put together a project plan?
Who cares about the speed of light when a client’s website isn’t loading quickly enough?
And what’s the point of understanding the nature of self when you’re trying to launch a business?
For a long time I couldn’t see why these deep questions were relevant to my day to day life.
Or more truthfully, the people I was surrounded by did not understand their relevance.
And so I felt alone.
And a little ashamed.
Until I did The Work.
For me, The Work was really going inside myself and exploring that shame, as well as allowing myself to indulge in my philosophical curiosity.
This was only possible because I started to surround myself with different people, who valued the same kinds of conversations and asked themselves similar questions.
My need for deep conversations was met by a community I accidentally cofounded.
In a sense, I unconsciously created what I needed.
But why are these questions so relevant?
For me, life is about patterns.
Patterns of actions, patterns of behaviour and patterns of thinking.
These patterns are based on an underlying structure or set of beliefs.
When you understand these patterns you can extrapolate and explain why the world works as it does.
For instance, we describe light as a wave because scientists have studied its patterns of behaviour. This wave behaviour explains why our eyes can only see certain things. The wavelengths of light that our eyes can detect limits what we can actually see. We can’t see infrared and we can’t see objects less than a millimetre in size. These limitations are all explained by understanding light as waves.
With this understanding we’ve developed x-rays to see inside the body and ultra-sophisticated telescopes that see into the universe.
In a similar way, psychologists and neuroscientists have shown that we don’t perceive reality as it is. While our senses detect the world, our mind has to interpret what has been detected. The meaning it gives this interpretation isn’t based just raw present data (touch, sight, smell, hearing), but also on processed past data: our beliefs, biases, history, culture and traumas.
This means that no-one has a truly objective view of reality.
If that’s the case then you can forgive yourself (and those you meet) for never sharing the exact same experience. This insight allows you to extrapolate and explain conflict and misunderstandings.
Knowing the nature of light has helped surgeons do microsurgery and engineers develop powerful microchips.
Knowing the nature of perception has helped mediators why conflict arises and how to best to address it.
Thinking about the deeper questions can lead to practical benefits.
This is one of the many reasons I do the work I do.
I believe that underlying patterns and stories are the leverage points from which to create understanding and implement change (if that’s what you need).
I used to believe others when they said philosophy was a waste of time.
And I would agree with them if I believed that life was just about obtaining wealth, fame or power.
But I disagree with them because for me life is about understanding and experiencing as fully as possible the world and myself.
With understanding comes insight.
With insight comes a richer and more powerful experience of life.
