“Ask a question and you’re a fool for three minutes;
do not ask a question and you’re a fool for the rest of your life.”

- Chinese Proverb -

What’s so great about the quote? Why the discussion about questions at all? After all, to question is something that we do everyday; something that comes so naturally to us that it’s part of human nature. It’s basically a natural phenomenon so what is there to question about it, right?

Right. That’s precisely why we should be studying “questions” at all.

You see, before you want to take over the world (think Pinky and the Brain), you must first take over the Bush administration; before you can kick Darth Vader out of the White House, you must first conquer your own country; before you can conquer your country, you must first conquer your state/province/district/whatever; before you conquer your state etc etc, you must first conquer your home (e.g. your family, your cats, your goats, mosquitoes, etc); before you can conquer your home, you must first conquer yourself; and to conquer yourself, you must first understand yourself.

Now, how can you understand yourself if you don’t question yourself?

Why should you ask questions anyway? To get answers of course. Answers that matter to you. Even if the answer doesn’t matter to you, and you ask questions simply to generate perspectives, think about it: To generate perspectives is a way of generating answers. After all, you won’t bother asking about things that don’t matter to you. You don’t ask your lecturer/boss why do they have a bad BO/lack of hair/no sense of humour, do you? You don’t ask your neighbour why she keeps stuffing her son with Big Macs when he’s about as wide as your door, do you?

It’s basically none of your business so you don’t ask about them.

The thing is, the fact that you actually question about anything at all proves that you have thought about giving meaning to things that matter in your life; things that you care about; things that you want to know about. Questioning makes your life more worthwhile. It shows that you actually give two shits about your life.

You care for the purpose of your life.

And that’s what philosophy is all about: Questions. Questions about things that matter to you, which hopefully have answers. Questions about the great IQ-enhancing-yet-brain-damaging mysteries of life like “What is love? Who am I? What is the meaning of life? Why didn’t I enlighten myself with Bodicea’s ingenius musings long before this?”

But those questions all seem to have subjective answers. For a question like “What is love?” you can read girlie magazines and chic lits and find a boring answer like “the unexplainable lasting physical or/and mental attraction”. However, in reality, before you’re 12 your answer may be “Mc-evil-Donald’s/Trans-supercool-formers/Bar-scary-bie voodoo-Doll/Bar-fucktarded-ney (all the brainwash from the monster’s theme song: ‘I love you, you love me, we are happy family…’)”. Before you’re 45, your answer may be: “sex/money/hugs/kisses/sex/weed/coke/E/power/more money/superpower like Bush/the end of Bush/even more sex”. And before you hit the grave, your answer may just be: “Botox/fake teeth/a nice coffin”.

Is there ever a fixed and definite answer?

Now philosophy seems like a study of questions with no definite answers. Seems quite pointless, right? It’s so abstract that it’s sometimes hard to understand as well. Imagine if The Matrix is not just your bedtime story but it’s real. That we’re all living in a computer program like The Sims, only that you don’t act as spastic as the Sims are. And in response to that idea, most people would go “WTF?” because they fail to appreciate something as kickass as The Matrix. But the thing is, once you’re able to get a “definite” answer for a philosophical question, the answer becomes a science. E.g. “Why do things fall?” asked Newton. Initially, some people of his ancient 17th century may have told him that it was God’s will or that it was just a part of nature and that there was no use questioning nature. In the end, Newton found the theory of gravity.

Now, is that stupid? Is asking questions pointless? Is philosophy useless? Apparently not. Because without questions, there are no answers.

In short, the definition of philosophy is the love of wisdom; the love of knowledge. The love of kaypoh-ing* about everything you care about in your life. Hence, the love of questioning anything at all is the culture of philosophy.

That’s all philosophers do: Ask questions. Especially “disturbing” ones.

And because we know that we actually bothered getting to know Life at all, we’re able to die happily ever after. As Socrates once said: “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

Looking back at the Chinese proverb above, you should now realize the importance of asking questions. Unless of course…you’re afraid to know the answers to your questions. (Cue: Thunderstorm plus stormy night background music)

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*kay.poh: n. pl. kay.pohs
Chiefly Malaysian Chinese

Slang. A busybody a.k.a. a nosy fucker a.k.a. almost everyone in this gawddam universe.

(A super wise dood who was said to be big, fat, and ugly)