Accepting vs. Questioning

I often find myself arguing. Usually, I'm arguing with myself. My mind partitions itself into two consciousnesses who fervently debate whatever issue arises. The following is such an argument. For the sake of convenience, I have arbitrarily named the two parties Neil and Diemon.

NOTE: This conversation has been considerably edited to remove the excessive and gratuitous use of profanity. It makes for a less heated-sounding debate, but also a less unpleasant piece of reading material.

Neil has pondered about some remarkable phenomenon and rhetorically asked why it is the way it is.
D: It's just the way of the universe.

N: You know what? I am so sick of you saying that. No matter what I wonder about, you say it's the way of the universe. Of course it's the way of the universe. There is nothing on this earth that isn't the way of the universe. In fact, there is nothing in this universe that isn't the way of the universe. If it was, then it wouldn't be in the universe.

D: I say it because it's the truth. You spend all your time wondering how and why things work, but what would you do about? You can't break the laws of the universe.

N: Water only moves from high places to low places. Rivers flow downhill. We see it all the time. You can't make water rise. That's an immutable law except for the fact that it isn't. We can make water rise. That's how the lock systems for canals function. And do you know why? It's because we also happen to know that water will fill the space of its container. If you simply see water flowing downward and accept it as fact, you never go anywhere or do anything. You become technologically stunted, stuck forever in the dark ages. Do you enjoy your computer and your music player and your delicious but incredibly affordable food products? All those things happened because people looked at the world around them, wondered why things were the way they are, and then found out why. They didn't look at a rock and say, "Some things are made of rock." They said, "What is rock made of? If I break a boulder into a stone, into a rock, into a pebble, into a particle or dust, what is that particle made of? And what is that stuff made of?" Doctors knew that chewing on willow bark relieved pain. But that wasn't enough. They wanted to know what part of the bark did it, how it worked and why. And you know what? They found out. They then found out how to create it, how to create an even better version of it that didn't upset your stomach, and now you have aspirin, a hundred doses in a bottle for a dollar. That's what people do with knowledge. They don't break the universe, but they do find what it's capable of. With knowledge comes understanding and realizations, which allow us change the world around us for the better.

D: That's all well and good, but what do you do when you find things that can't be answered? What do you do when you find things that can't be changed? When a person gets dumped and feels completely betrayed, rejected, is utterly wounded and bound to become scarred, what do you do then? There are no magic words to make it all better. There is no magic pill that takes the pain away (drugs just delay it). No matter how much you know about how and why these things happen, only time heals those wounds.

N: Just like a real cut on the body, healing is a slow process that has no instant fix. However, also like a real cut, these situations can be made better with knowledge. You can comfort and console a person to ease the pain. You can get the person to think about a completely different subject so that time may pass more quickly and when they remember the pain, it has lessened. You can prevent the person from making rash decisions that would worsen their situation. You can get them to spill their guts so they are not bottling it all in. Knowledge in physiology, sociology, and psychology, even rudimentary knowledge, can make a significant difference. No, some things cannot be instantly cured, but if you accept the world as it is, never question it, and never try to find out how the inner workings work, you have nothing more than a superficial view of anything.


At this point, the argument trails off, as nothing more can be said. Neil and Diemon have both made their points. Neither one can convince the other. So they agree that they are at an impasse and move on to other things.

I shared this dialogue for two reasons. The first is that I believe a writer should be able to do this. You should be able to see both sides of an issue. You should be able to argue for either side. You should be able to argue against either side, too. This will ensure that you can do more than simply write stories where you spout your beliefs using your characters as an avatar for yourself. It will allow you to create people who aren't you.

The second reason is that, in this case, I think that Neil has won the argument. Both of these people are me. And I do have a strong tendency to simply say "that's just the way things are; there's nothing you can do about it." However, that's a cop out. I do believe that you should always be questioning. You should always want to know more and more. Widen your field of knowledge and increase your depth of knowledge for each of those fields. You may not change the world, but maybe you will. You have no idea what will happen in your life with that knowledge, but you will never find out if you don't get it in the first place.