Living in the questions
"The experiences we place ourselves in often beg for great questions, not great answers. They demand curiosity, not expertise….[they] are rooted in a particular mindset”
– Zak Tracy, Experience Institute blog
As my friend and Experience Institute colleague ponders the nature of asking great questions in this week’s blog, I’m reminded of the next challenge of inquiry –– living in it. You may be able to articulate questions that color your life, relationship, or community –– but finding a graceful way to embrace them is a challenge unto itself.
As I navigate relationships, careers, and commitments, I often experience a distinct uneasiness. This discomfort is the challenge of exploring one’s own questions. The fear of uncertainty in the face of inquiry. However, there is one passage that seems to calm me in these hazy moments. From Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet*:
"I beg you, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer."
Since I was 17, I’ve had Rilke’s meditation hanging above my bed. It gently reminds me to greet questions in my life with patience rather than torment. It’s still a struggle to live up to its call, but a worthy one.
"What questions are you trying to love and live into right now?"
#expquestions
*Letters to a Young poet is a collection of the correspondence between Rainer Maria Rilke and 19-year-old Franz Xaver Kappus from 1902-1908. Kappus implored Rilke for poetic, career, and life advice. Though they never met, Rilke’s beautiful letters contain gems of insight to guide any life.