Just about everyone is familiar with the proverb ‘There are no stupid questions’. While most people will be quick to agree, I can guarantee that the majority of those people don’t truly believe it. Even I find myself dismissing the odd question as dumb.

In a society of instant gratification and constant information, we have grown quick to judge in order to keep up. It’s easy to take a question that seems obvious to you and decide it’s not worth your time to answer. It’s also easy to think less of the asker for not knowing the answer; I mean, it seemed so obvious to you after all.

As I kid I was a big fan of my dad’s old MAD magazines. I particularly liked Al Jaffee’s Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions. Boy oh boy did Al ever make some people sound silly. His witty retorts were so good I forgot all about the adage of no stupid questions. I learned that there are stupid questions and the best way to respond to them was with a clever and sarcastic remark. I later learned that Al Jaffee is a jerk.

Recently I have been exploring the art of meditation. Through self-reflection, I have gained patience. I have realized that it’s not about the questions. At the end of the day, it does not matter whether or not a question is intelligent. Every question is significant and important in its own right. If you read my last blog post you’ll know that the important thing is to not stop questioning.

So my challenge to you is to not only agree with the motto ‘There are no stupid questions’, but practice it. Next time someone asks you a ‘stupid question’, answer it! No matter what the question is. Do not allow yourself to get agitated by the curious individual wasting your time but rather encourage this inquisitive nature. Every time you make someone feel like they asked a bad question you are teaching them to stop questioning.

I leave you with my own twist on the proverb and that is this:

There are stupid questions and they’re the best ones.

Be good to each other; you have but one life to live. You can choose to support your neighbor or you can choose to judge them for asking ‘stupid questions’. I hope you choose wisely and never stop questioning.

Greetings! You currently reading the first installation of my blog series ‘Thoughts on Thoughts’. This series will serve as a collection of reflection pieces. Thoughts on Thoughts, or ToT for short, will primarily focus on my personal analysis of inspirational quotes with occasional ties to meditation and mindfulness.

Without further ado, I would like to kick off this series with a thought from one of histories greatest thinkers:

The important thing is not to stop questioning. — Albert Einstein¹

Some say necessity is the mother of all invention but I say nay! Curiosity is the mother of all invention. New things aren’t thought of because they are needed. It all starts with wondering. It wasn’t a need to fly that drove the Wright Brothers to the skies but rather an interest in flight. I can’t tell you exactly how the conversation went but I imagine it was somewhat like this:

Sketch by Orville Wright of the Penaud Helicopter Toy²

“Hey, Orville, do you think man is capable of flying like the birds?”

“I dunno, Wilbur, let’s find out!”

and then they made invented the airplane. Not because they had to, but because they wanted to. Because they had to finally answer the question they had been asking each other since they were children and their father gave them an old helicopter toy.

While life wouldn’t be the same without it, there has never been a need for the airplane, or any other invention. If you ask Abraham Maslow, we as people hardly need anything at all; certainly not airplanes. In fact, it’s quite difficult to need something that has never been. If mankind has made it this far without, why do you need it now?

So once again I say nay, necessity is not the mother of invention but curiosity!

The important thing is to not stop questioning. Question everything. Question me, question yourself, question the Wright Brothers, even question Einstein. Is there a better way to do this? A faster way to do that? You don’t need anything but if your question is: ‘how has mankind made it this far without…’, I can see where you’d get confused.

Fun fact: The Wright Brothers first took to the skies on December 17th 1903, exactly 90 years before my birthday.

^{1. 1955 May 2, LIFE, Death of a Genius: His fourth dimension, time, overtakes Einstein, Subsection: Old Man’s Advice to Youth: ‘Never Lose a Holy Curiosity’ by William Miller (Editor at LIFE magazine), Start Page 62, Quote Page 64, Time Inc., New York. (Google Books Full View)} ↩

^{2. Gray, C. (1998-2003). FLYING MACHINES – Alphonse Penaud. [online] Flyingmachines.org. Available at: http://www.flyingmachines.org/pend.html [Accessed 23 Feb. 2018].}↩