Meera was questioned by her distant aunt, “What, where does your fiancé work?”. She replied he is a software engineer working in Infosys. Aunt was pleased and continued, “That is just wonderful. How much does he get paid every month?.” Meera replied, “ Around thirty thousand.” Now the aunt was disappointed and mentioned her neighbor back home who was also a software engineer and he earned nearly a lakh every month. She then came to ask a question that was supposed to be the first one in usual cases. “Which caste does he belong to?”. Supposedly, Meera was pleased to have not been asked about the caste first instead of the financial condition.
Because money is necessary. And no matter what great philosophers speak in tons about “money cannot give happiness.” But in reality, in this real world, Money can give happiness in most cases, up to some extent. Only when desired more than necessary, money could become toxic. Anyways, the point is the question of money situation in life is a worthy one. So accepted without any complaints.
The wonder is about all those questions unasked.
What kind of a human being is your fiancé?
What are his unique personality traits?
What are his hobbies? Does he paint, does he read, is he interested in movies, which is his favorite food, is he a coffee person or a tea person, and which flavor of ice cream does he like? (that would probably be my first question), what is his big philosophy of life, how does he treat his parents, and is he a feminist?
And the actual question is, Do you like and love him? Do you think you are going to be happy with him?
Many questions are abandoned or just never arrive in the tiny Sapiens brain as essential. Why?
It’s not just about the old generation people forgetting to ask them, some young, modern, educated men and women choose to share their life with another person, a stranger without knowing that he/she does not like peanuts in rice items. The point is not about, not liking peanuts is going to cause major problems in their married life. But it can, maybe. Why not? Sometimes, some people cannot tolerate certain differences in taste, ideas, and behavior. And then there may be people who stretch out their arms as widely as possible to welcome and accept all kinds of differences patiently and even may fall in love with an entirely different person, admiring all disagreements on everything.
But the only point is those questions need to be asked. They matter, they make things better, clearer, and more beautiful than ever.
It’s not just about the questions related to marriage. The same scenario appears all the time in all events. Say, no parents probably ask their children, “Does your friend love collecting stamps as you do?” or “Are your friend into fiction novels too?” or “Are you able to speak openly, with no insecurities and inhibitions with your classmates?” or “Are people around you make you happy and have no judgments?”. Then as you grow a little old, questions that don’t appear are, “ What is your passion?”, “ do you want to dance and sing for the rest of your life?. ”, “ do you want to write romantic novels”, “ do you love football enough to dedicate your life to it?”, “would you like to just travel around the world”, “What makes you happy and euphoric about living with, oh dear friend/ child?”.
There is joy in asking, “ what is your salary? ”, “ how many days do you get holidays? ”, and “How are your colleagues?”. But what could help people is to ask, “ do you feel like getting up and going to work every day?”, “Are you being listened to by your mentors and colleagues?”, “ Do you love your work, passionate?”, “Do you want to quit?”, “Do you get time to read your favorite novel or play the violin”, “ do you get time to look at the stars in the sky every day?” “Are you really happy, content?”. Very practical people may argue that the questions about salary or number of holidays and perks offered itself gives answers to determine a person’s happiness.
But we are humans with hearts and souls. Those questions, the very words used in them help to heal broken people. An opportunity to answer those questions could probably save lives. Or bring someone out of the gloom, depression, and nihilism. But they are ignored or simply people have lost their curiosity. Yes, curiosity is dead. With it the creativity and aesthetics of living life. Also the power of understanding others too.
Sometimes asking no questions would give relief to another person. Questions like, “Why dint you tell me about that decision you made?”, “Why didn’t you reply to me, call me, answer my call, why dint you?”. Instead of asking, a little effort to understand the obvious fact that, there could have been or there always are many reasons for a person to behave or decide in a particular way. One of those reasons could be simply the person had this feeling to not do or to do certain things, behave a certain way. That’s it. Or maybe restructure the questions to make them better sounding for the person listening. A simple action to focus your thoughts on imagining another person’s life could spare them from being placed in a moment of worry, anxiety, annoyance, dumb, unhappiness, insecurity, dishonesty, scared, feeling judged, and embarrassment. Silence could give extra freedom to a being to be who they are. Natural. Real. Serene.
Instead, everyone wants to be practical, sensible, rational, productive, efficient, smart, fast, save time, be judgmental, throw out insecurities, know lots of facts with a fat wallet, and so on and on. All the rich technical terms in the dictionary used to describe a human-made, the non-living machine can be just lined up, which matters to people all the time.
Why not ask the unasked questions, reframe, make better the questions or just be kind enough to be silent, to simply understand?
We humans must take it seriously to start working the brain out of the petit box!