Here Are Questions for Your Answers

For the past year of studying philosophy and now with a declared philosophy major, I’ve encountered numerous ideas that have shook my core beliefs and opinions about various matters. A few examples of challenging areas that have prompted insightful and dynamic discussions include absurdism and idealism—two of the areas of philosophy that I am most interested in.

For my whole life, I’ve always been the person asking the difficult questions, such as the why and how questions, when most people generally gravitate towards the what questions. I’ve spent so much time searching and seeking for the ultimate answers to life: Does God exist? Is there an afterlife? Does the soul exist? Are we free? And the biggest one of all: Why is there something rather than nothing?

In high school, I felt that the closest way to get to the absolute truth of this question was to take a physics class. I felt as if physics could explain everything, and most importantly––prove it. I finished the year of high school physics feeling disappointed––I never got the answers I was searching for. Physics––like most other things––only answered the what questions and still left me hungry for the why and how questions.

But what about religion? It gives you the answers to all of those why questions, so what’s wrong with religion? As much as I value and appreciate my Catholic faith––there is a reason it’s called faith. And as much as I believed what my faith taught me, I knew the foundational answers couldn’t come from there, because there are so many religions in the world that all claim to know the truth, so that meant I had to find these answers from outside the scope of all faith, religion, and tradition––because those are all things that are human-made, institutionalized, and developed over the course of history. I needed something that was timeless and didn’t required humankind to exist in the first place––because, if you haven’t noticed, if humans cease to exist, the universe and all other organisms don’t just disappear.

And that’s when I entered philosophy. I believed, and still believe that only philosophy can provide the answers to these questions. I came in looking for answers to all of my questions, but here I am, with questions for my answers. And that’s what philosophy will do to you. I am taking a philosophy class this quarter on German idealism and I seemingly agree with every thinker who’s work we are reading…until we move onto the next. Then I question everything I just read and completely find fault with who I––one week ago––was in complete agreement with. That perfectly sums up my experience in philosophy.

This week, a frustrated Saran walked into his professor’s (whose name will remain anonymous) office during office hours:

“What’s the point of all this if you are never going to reach an answer,” I asked.

“I think trying to find an answer alone is enough. The process of trying to answer it is enough, and know you will be left with more questions. That is enough to satisfy me.”

I shrugged.

“Okay, say you do find the absolute foundational answer of all the why questions. What happens to life now? Does it really change anything about the human experience?,” my professor asked me.

I nodded in agreement and had a realization. I finally got it. Nothing about our human experience would really change if we had the answers to the why questions. It’s not arriving at an answer that’s important, but the pursuit of an answer. For the last four-thousand-years, all of philosophy has not been able to arrive at answer, just more questions for the answers that were left behind previously by another thinker. Same with religion, same with natural science.

If philosophy has taught me anything so far––other than how to write, read, and think critically, and how to read ridiculously heavy texts in English and German––it’s that there is so much more to our human experience and world than our strong opinion and belief. I realized this: Strong opinions are irrational. Being willing to have your entire experience, belief, and opinion shattered after reading a five-page text is a skill and a level of open-mindedness that more people should try to exude.

Most of the conflict in the world today comes from those who hold strong opinions and aren’t willing to listen to the “other-side,” and have their own strong opinions challenged. And that’s why I say strong opinions are irrational. Because, how can you be so sure? Have you expanded your knowledge and delved into every thinker that has existed in the course of human history? Philosophy taught me that one of the best things one can learn to do is to just listen and nod.

Oh…and to ask a question…