It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.
–Eugène Ionesco, Discoveries (1969)
Most of you who have read this blog for any amount of time know that I ask a lot of questions and provides few, if any, answers. This sense of wondering and not knowing provides an uncertainty that I have come to feel is the driving force behind my work.
That is to say that my work often provides the only certainty, the only viable answers, to the questions and uncertainties that live on a fulltime basis in my mind. And even at that, I wouldn’t call them answers. They are more symbols of an acceptance that I will most likely never know the answers to my questions.
They are an act of balancing my uncertainties into a form that gives me what amounts to a modicum of certainty.
Without these questions, I doubt that I would be much of an artist. Probably not an artist at all.
It is this type of questioning and its place in creativity and innovation that are the basis for a wonderful new book, Great Question, from Larry Robertson, founder and president of Lighthouse Consulting and so much more. He is a columnist, a highly sought speaker, and an award-winning author of several books dealing with ways to enhance our thought processes, creativity, and communication, concepts that apply for both businesses and individuals.
In Great Question, Larry has reached out to a large number of prominent folks across a wide variety of fields. There are leaders from business, academia, education, religion, and charitable organizations, as well as authors, broadcasters and so many others. There is even an artist or two. He asked each how questions shaped their decisions, their planning, and their problem solving. The premise being that without continued questioning there is stasis in our growth and progress. Questions provide new ways of thinking, expanding our perspectives and opening us up to new horizons and opportunities.
One section early in the book that caught my attention was his interviews with primary school educators who spoke about how we are trained in school at an early age to ask fewer questions. It seems counter to our idea of education and the inquisitive minds of children. But questions in the classroom take up valuable time that has already been fully devoted to teaching the required syllabus. Fewer questions make the syllabus more achievable. Not having children, I had never given it much thought but had noticed over the years in my interactions with kids that they seem to ask fewer questions as they moved into 5th or 6th grade and beyond. Nothing scientific there, of course, but the observations in the book lined up pretty much with what I had noticed.
Actually, I had noticed that most people ask very few questions anymore. We tend to take things as they are presented and often don’t want to or are uneasy about delving beyond the surface. And that is a shame. Questions link us to others and expand our knowledge and understanding in important ways. Without questions, something is lost for us all.
I was fortunate to have Larry interview me a couple of years ago for this book. I met him probably 25 or more years ago at one of my openings at the Principle Gallery. Over the years I have become friends with Larry and his wife, Kai. Over that time his insights, both in general and on my work, have been most enlightening for me. That extends to the first question Larry posed to me, as he did with all the other interviewees, which was: What is a question?
I don’t remember my answer, but I am sure I stuttered and stumbled to some sort of bullshit reply. I felt that it required an answer. I felt the same for much of the whole interview. Afterwards, it made me more fully examine how questions played a vital part in what I do and who I am. The act of questioning what is beyond the evident has always been an important part of my work and I was beginning to fully see that the answers didn’t matter as much as the questions since many could never be answered in a way that we could fully understand.
That interview with Larry really opened my eyes to that. I believe I got more out of it than Larry though he was able to include parts of it along with some of my writings here on the blog in a section of his book. I am honored to be included in it alongside so many highly accomplished folks.
Thanks, Larry, for all you have given me with your support and wisdom over the years.
My recap here is greatly lacking this morning. This book is so much more than my words can fully capture in an hour or so this morning. I hope you’ll add Great Question to your reading list. I guarantee there is something in there that will be of use or will change the way you see how you use questions to your advantage– or don’t use to your disadvantage– in your own life. It will make you more cognizant of asking questions that take you somewhere, that expand your thinking.
Like the Ionesco quote at the top: It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.
May you find enlightenment in your questioning.