Question ?!

Pre-thought note:

There is a good reason for the double punctuation mark. When superimposed on one another, the question and the exclamation mark become one. The interrobang was birthed as a result of two quite different parents, the ‘interro’ coming from the interrogative question, and the ‘bang’ being the slang word used by printers from as early as the 1960’s (Wikipedia).

The interrobang has elicited some furious debate in libraries and literary circles ever since. One can only imagine the academic aggression being postured at Oxford or Cambridge tea parties against this American imposter of punctuation, (their only one in three hundred years) making its shady and schizophrenic presence felt. In frustration a cucumber sandwich was likely tossed with disdain, and the contemptuous comment against its inclusion in the hallowed pages of the English language may well have been:

“Are you serious?!”

“Really?!”

A brave soul at the same gathering may have muttered from the back rows of both their seats and their dentures,

“He just used the interrobang twice Edna. I think we should take it as entrenched.”

I like this offspring of two wonderful parents. Imagine having a Mother or Father who is deeply questioning. Who explores understanding through searching and who asks always if there is a better way forward. Someone who is comfortable in the unknowing and who can sit with the polarities and ambiguities of the explored life. The other parent being a flash of spontaneous excitement filled with emotion. One who lives right in the moment, who appreciates sentiment and who impulsively expresses their feelings.

Diversity breeds new ideas with a statement disguised as a question or vice versa.

Back to the thought:

My daughter arrived home from school one day. She was about six years old at the time. I could see in her sparkling eyes that she had learned something new today, and she had that mischievous look of the learner about to become the teacher.

“Dad, what is the difference between knowledge and wisdom?”

There is such a thing as an immediate pain behind the eyeball, much like an ice cream headache which develops when trying to answer an academic question posed by a six-year old. I was searching hard for an appropriate and quite brilliant answer, and I was failing dismally. How does a Father explain this when he doesn’t know himself?

Hannah allowed me to sweat through my uncertainty and by the sparkle in her eyes she was relishing this reversal of roles which would increasingly become the norm in our household. Eventually she would put me out the misery of my unknowing.

“Dad, its OK. I know the answer.”

“Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put that tomato into a fruit salad.”

Ever since that day when I, as the student was ready and the teacher appeared, I have been intrigued by the difference between knowledge and wisdom. Generally, I have quoted Einstein as saying that:

Knowledge is having the right answers. Wisdom lies in asking the right questions.

Through all my recent research, there is no exact tie of these words to Einstein, so perhaps it should be attributed to the greatest philosopher of all time. Anonymous.

What still holds true though is the untapped potential of the question. How many answers might we get, and will those answers be the same as those regurgitated from last week’s management meeting? Could we find ourselves exploring not just the possible answer, but a whole new set of potential relationships? Or might they even deepen the strong relationships we already have? Like a successful gold prospector who surveys the land before panning, a great question might map out the landscape of the thinking, burrow beneath the fearful, crusty dry surface of exposure and tap into the rich vein of vulnerability.

It is in that vein where we find the valuable nuggets, and as the first shy nugget of sharing surfaces, a rush of golden ideas might emerge from the construct of a carefully crafted question.

It is the poet, Rainer Maria Rilke in an extract from “Letters to a young Poet” who perhaps provides some advice to us all in our searching:

“Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”

One could go into a full day’s workshop to delve into this glorious guidance, and it is something I am still trying hard to do when everything seems to be screaming for a right and reliable answer in these current times of Covid.

There are few things more beautiful for me than a rich example from the world of true stories, and I was uplifted by an all too brief snippet of a good news story which held at its heart a quite magnificent question.

The Bel Aire Diner in Queens New York is a restaurant opened in 1965, and was then bought in 1996 by A Greek-American couple named Archie and Patty Dellaportas. Since that day, it has been open every minute of every day for over twenty four years. In Ancient Greek parlance, that would be called an Aeon – a broad sweep of time. When Covid 19 arrived as a very unwelcome guest with its devastating feedback form, they did what they could by offering take out, signing up with food delivery apps and services and selling vouchers up front. These measures barely kept them afloat, and they were still seventy percent down in sales in a one hundred and eighty-seater eatery. While it might only take three well placed darts to fill “One hundred and eeeeeiiiiiiigggggghhhhhtttttyyy” as a perfect score, it takes a whole lot more than that to fill a restaurant and its hungry balance sheet.

And then emerged the golden Question.

“How can we bring people in without actually bringing people in?”

Well, to cut to the front of the food queue, The Bel Aire Diner suddenly became the Bel Aire Drive – In.

At Thirty Two USD per car, tickets are sold on line, and like all great attractions, touts outside the parking lot are turning their own profits. There are no queues for food which is delivered to your vehicle window. Double feature movies – all family friendly, are shown on an inflatable screen. Breakfasts are still made, but donated to the needy, and Oh, if you need the facilities, please just wear a mask.

Sometimes if we look back along the hooked thorn on our zizyphus branch, we realise that we might already have the answer for which we so desperately search, and maybe we could add to the genius of Rainer Maria Rilke that we might not only “live our way into the answer”,

But might we in fact be able to Re – live our way into our own answer?!

The question turns a problem into a challenge and a crisis into an opportunity, or even an infinite set of possibilities.

Question?!

Steve Hall

PS. That last word is both an invitation and a suggestion.

As in, Please question, I would love your comment, and we should question – it keeps us curious.