March 1, 2014

March 1, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

There are answers to our questions, but we don’t dare to ask often enough and consequently, the intensity of our quest can’t reach the point at which things become clear. We can of course say that we must “dig deeper into our selves” to find our own answers, but this approach cannot lead to satisfactory answers. Our questions must be asked to others and our answers must also come from others. 


Our questions signify that we don’t know. We wouldn’t have them if we knew. The fact that other people can pretend to know and can fool us, is the reason that we give up asking. What is the use of asking if the answers aren’t true or turn out to be false after we have believed them? The conclusion that “nobody knows” is based on the experiences we accumulate due to which our questions, without us noticing it, recede further into the background, as if they had become unimportant and did not need any answer. 

Because our questions did not get answered, many of us are inclined to believe in  “a higher power.” Others practice methods that are meant to forget worries. The presumed answers from the former used to be what other people also believed in, but that is no longer the case. Nowadays, given our free access to information, we take pride in having own version of “spirituality.” Answers we give to ourselves are such that our questions stop: first, we stop asking others and then we stop asking ourselves. Our presumed lack of questions is a precarious self- concept. 

Anyone who questions anything we do is seen as our enemy. The person who knows the answer to our question, realizes that we have been asking the wrong questions. He or she will have to make it seem as if he or she is answering our question, but he or she is reformulating our question and answering that question. Even if we insist on answering the questions we ask ourselves, such a question is answered as if there is a separation between the one who asks and the one who answers. Rather than saying "I don’t know", we may pretend to be all-knowing, while we do not realize that our grandiosity is triggered by the separation of the speaker and the listener and is causing us trouble. Furthermore, we think that the questions other people have, are only their questions and we also think that their answers cannot be our answers, but no question or answer belongs to any individual or group.

Science proves that answers to questions have nothing to do with what any person or group thinks. To the extent that they have remained unanswered, mankind’s questions have remained the same. To the extent that questions were distracted from by making them seem personal or by finding solace in the answers that came from “trust” in “our higher power”, we are stuck with answers which represent our problems and which don’t generate the kind of conversation in which we can ask the right question and admit that we don’t know how to solve our problems. 

Admitting that we don’t know how something works is an essential first step in increasing our understanding. There are people who are willing to admit that they don’t know how to improve human relationship. They may not have the answers we demand and most likely they will come up with answers which go against what we believe, but they are the only ones capable of accurately assessing what is going on. Our questions trouble us so much that we fail to properly assess what is going on. We think it isn’t necessary to talk with someone who knows the answer, because most likely, such person doesn’t know what he or she is talking about.