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Wondering … “Why?”

Posted by Joseph Riggio on Friday, July 28, 2006

Morning All,

One of the things I must say is that I often wonder, “Why?” I wonder how come things are as they are instead of some other way. I wonder if it’s “me” or “the world” and I wonder why I’m wondering instead of just moving along.

FIrst of all I think wondering is a natural human preoccupation ... “I wonder ... therefore I am ... human.” We’re designed to wonder, it helps us get along. I wonder what you’re thinking when I see you act in a particular manner. I wonder what you’re thinking when I see you NOT act in a particular manner. I wonder at what you say and what you don’t say. I wonder why I haven’t seen you or heard from you ... and why I have. I find myself in endless wonder about you.

Then I make guesses ... hallucinations really ... about all these things I wonder about you. I “figure out” what it all means and apply my meaning to you and that’s what “IT” is for me in regards to you. We see this all the time around us ... people hallucinating about others and then imposing their hallucinations on others. “He/She did ...” or “He/She meant ...” And, of course that leads to “Now I have to ...” And, as a result sometimes we have wars and lots of people die.

So we’re built to wonder and as a result sometimes lots of people can suffer because we’re capable of believing what we come up with and act upon it as real. This really stinks, I think it just plain sucks that people will impose their particular hallucinations on others. What makes it especially difficult is that various groups of people have entirely different structures to the basic halluncinations they have about others. And, part of the hallucination of the group is that the other groups are using the same hallucinations!

That’s when lots of people can die.

So it seems that we have to begin to wonder about our wondering to me. We might begin from wondering whether what we’re even wondering about is useful ... is really getting us the outcomes we want. Then we could even find ourselves free to wonder about other things that we haven’t wondered about before that are more wonderful ... to ourselves ... in regard to others ... even for the whole species or planet.. Now wouldn’t that be a wonder!

Hoping no one dies today because people are wondering what it means for others to be who they are ...

Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
Princeton, NJ

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