Head and Heart

Some questions were never meant to be answered. “Why are we here?” springs to mind rapidly. That question is predicated on the assumption that you can know. You can’t know why, and it is pure arrogance to assume that you can know the answer to a question that goes so far back in history that there will never be any documentation. I should point out that this is from the technical, “proper” standpoint of “Why” as a question dealing with history. Any time you ask “Why,” you are asking a question of history. “Why did you do that?” Why did you do that thing that happened in the past? “Why are you going that?” What result are you hoping to gain from what you’re doing? “Why are you here?” What series of events led you to be where you are? Given that we can never properly know the scope and sequence of events that led to the present, it’s a preposterous question. Given the possibilities and probabilities of all that CAN happen in the future, it is a preposterous question. Questions like these can be interesting to explore, and they can lead to some fascinating self-discovery; however, it should also be noted that asking these questions is a little bit like trying to tear down K2 one rock at a time, single-handed. You could work for five consecutive lifetimes and not get any closer.
My personal preference, when it comes to these kinds of questions, is “What are you doing?” I love the present continuous tense. It is now, and it is perpetual. It forces you to take a look at what you are doing and to describe it as it is, honestly. It’s kind of like something I read about Buddhism (I think it was Zen, specifically) not too long ago:
“If you’re peeling potatoes, most of your major religions will try to remind you of everything external about where the potatoes came from and where you came from and where your praise ought to go. In Buddhism, just peel the potatoes.”
That’s what you’re doing. In a way, none of that other stuff matters. You see, where the potatoes came from doesn’t matter because the potatoes are there now. You bought them or grew them or whatever, and whatever the situation, they are there now. It doesn’t matter where the potatoes are going because you could trip and fall and send them flying into the trash can—where they would probably stay—and who can say it’s never happened to them? Don’t worry about it. Just peel the damned potatoes and appreciate being there at the time you’re doing it. Finished. It might make you smile when you realize what a distinct privilege it is to be there and alive and peeling those potatoes in that corner time in that corner of space in the world. Be where you are, not where you could be or where you were.
Well, I’ve managed to get pretty sidetracked by these abstractions here, but let’s get down to brass tacks: there are questions that aren’t meant to be answered and can never be answered (see above), and there are questions which are meant to be answered but can’t ever be answered, and there are questions are never meant to be answered but can, and there are questions which are meant to be answered and can be answered.
As it regards the second category of question, the biggest one is: what happens when we die? We are all meant to answer this question, but it will cost us our life, and can therefore never be answered in a technical sense. We can only answer it when we take the steps necessary to answer it, which ends in our inability to answer it. That’s kind of a bummer. All I’m going to say about the possibilities of an after-life is this: you can have faith and you can believe and I’m not going to stop you because you can never KNOW—and let’s just make double clear here that I’m talking about knowing in the head sense, not the heart sense.
Questions of the never meant to be answered but can be answered generally fall into the realm of tragedy. You should never know what a Holocaust looks like, but we’ve seen it. You aren’t supposed to know what it feels like to kill somebody, but you can. There’s something in this, an object petit a that I’m missing (or rather that could be developed), but here, now, we’re going to move on to…
Question that you are meant to know the answer to and questions that you can know the answer to. These are generally questions about overcoming fear. These are the questions where heart knowledge pushes one to brain knowledge. You feel something, but you don’t know it in your head. You feel it, but you haven’t experienced it. One of the greatest questions for this is: “What do you do when that which you want looks at you and says, ‘I want you, too’?”
You feel like you’re meant to know. You feel like you can know. The only thing standing in your way is the obstacle of the self, of the fear that is inherent in following feeling. Emotion is not knowledge. Experience is knowledge. Emotion is hope. The problem is that emotion is real. I AM this feeling. This is the inherent problem with love. We feel it. We experience it, but it never “exists”—in the sense that we can feel it physically (and don’t confuse feeling physically with the ephemeral touch of another… because that is sensory perception feeling and different). Love is Real. Love doesn’t exist. It’s kind of like God.
“What does love feel like?” is a question best left to poets who can write:
“Body of my woman, I will persist in your grace.
My thirst, my boundless desire, my shifting road!
Dark river-beds where the eternal thirst flows

and weariness follows, and the infinite ache.”
That’s what love “feels” like, but you can’t touch it.
The key here is freedom. Most people are actually afraid of their freedom. You are free to do anything. “Don’t tell people that!” You are. I’m not even sorry to say it. You are completely free to do whatever you want. Should you do whatever you want is a different question. Can you do whatever you want? Yes. That’s kind of a scary idea for people.
“What about my job? What about my career? What will people think? What do I do with X? What about this? What about that?”
Those are all valid questions, but they can all be dismissed with the doing. That’s freedom. Your job and your career? If it’s really what you want to do, then you’re fine. If not, then why are you there? Screw ‘em. Why punish yourself for the rest of your life because THEY expect you to be there. People will think what they will. They always have and they always will. Screw ‘em. Let ‘em think what they want, for they see only in part, but when in comes to YOUR life, YOU see in full. Your things and possessions, as almost every religion will tell you, are holding you back anyway. You can’t run away from your problems, let’s get that straight, but you can sure as hell get far enough away that they are not oppressing. Fear. Fear. Fear. Sometimes what it boils down to is a fear to truly live. How did those voices of experience get to where they are? Experience. Why take somebody’s word for it when you can KNOW. When you can BE it. When you can DO it. When you can GO. Respect is due to those whose theory matches their experience: they know in mind and soul. You failed? It’ll be hard. It might be the hardest thing you’ve ever experienced. But now you KNOW, head and heart.