One of the things that strikes me again and again as I see tour groups come through the film building is the difficulty that people have in asking meaningful questions, even when it’s really important that they do so. It’s hard for people to put up their hand and ask a question that would give them sufficient information to make a decision. Most of them just stand there and look around as if seeing a hallway will provide enough information from which to select a future college for their student.
But with a little banter back and forth, a few pointed questions at them, a slow painful response, you can build up a back-and-forth exchange that will finally allow them to express their concerns and address their uncertainties. It takes time to build that interaction and time for it to unfold. Usually that time is lacking.
I see this also with first year students in class. Everyone sits there uncertain what a reasonable question would be. What, they think, do I even know enough of, to be confused about. They’re baffled by the whole thing and sit there in a puddle of inertia waiting for clarity to simply strike them.
How do you break people out of that and get them going?
The real goal is to get them finally to a level where new questions can be self-answered or they have sufficient skills to discover the answer. But, fundamentally, you need to learn how to discover what is the question that should be asked right now?
So I see all of this as much the same problem, the problem of being a beginner. At the earliest stages of learning anything you have no vocabulary, no methods, no history, no resources, and often no hope. It’s depressing.
It is problematic, but if you make your way past this initial stage with even some modest amount of understand under your belt you might find yourself, through positive actions, miraculously able to do things , which then allows you to feel better about what you’re doing, maybe even good, which then makes it easier to learn the rest of it all. A rolling stone gathers good will and then goes faster, sometimes even in the right direction.
If you miss that turn in the road of simply being able to do things, you will, mostly likely, never succeed. Energy sapped, you’ll give up and walk away disappointed and disgruntled thinking you failed. Mostly, you never had a chance. The deck was stacked against you and you didn’t even know that.
So what’s it take to show up at the right place with just enough skills to do something that makes you feel good enough to keep going and eventually get much better?
Part of it is understanding that there is an emotional landscape that we’re walking across with dips and hills, elegant vistas and murky views, quiet times and hectic days. We’ll experience a range of emotions and feelings that we need at times to embrace or ignore, but always realize that it’s a flow that’s as natural as the passing of the day. Some days it rains, some days the sun shines brightly, but it will always change and then change again.
We also need to feel that there’s actually a path we can follow. Even more useful, that there could be a map to show us where we are, where we’ve been and what the options are for future exploration. With out a map to discover the terrain we’re not just lost, but lost with no insights about where we even want to be. Maybe we’re actually right where we want to be, but we just don’t know that.
Questions are like surveyors sent out ahead to draw the landscape, plot the pathways, find the way and then report back information that we can use to make better informed decisions. Without strong questions we’re just wandering in the wilderness, just short of being totally lost.
The Hampshire way is to ask, ask again, and ask someone else. None of the answers are necessarily true. So not only do you need good questions, but you also need to question the answers. It’s up to you, with strong questions and valid answers, to build the map to find out both where you are and where your really want to go.
gunther
