I have a question. No, actually, scratch that. Apparently I am the only person around here capable of having one. Do you know what is presently occupying my inbox?
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not a riddle. Not a question. Not an accusation. Not even one of those profoundly irritating little anonymous declarations people insist upon depositing in my general vicinity as though I am some sort of public receptacle for their unprocessed thoughts. Nothing. An immaculate, pristine, utterly barren expanse of digital silence.
Do you understand how statistically improbable that is?
There are, conservatively speaking, millions upon millions of questions that could conceivably be asked at any given moment. Humanity has spent several thousand years asking them. What is the meaning of life? Are we alone in the universe? Is consciousness emergent or fundamental? Can morality exist independent of consequence? Why does Gotham continue electing officials who possess roughly the same collective problem-solving capacity as a concussed pigeon trapped inside a vending machine?
And yet somehow, miraculously, every single one of you has simultaneously exhausted your capacity for curiosity. Fascinating. Truly.
I didn’t realize intellectual bankruptcy could be synchronized. One might assume that placing an individual of demonstrably superior intellect within conversational reach would inspire some degree of inquiry. One might reasonably predict that at least one person would look upon the extraordinary opportunity before them and think, “Perhaps I should ask Edward Nygma something.”
Anything. Anything at all. You could ask me about mathematics. Cryptography, Linguistics, Engineering. Game theory. Probability. Deductive reasoning. The inherent philosophical inadequacy of Batman’s entire methodology. Why crossword puzzles have been steadily declining in quality. Why half the people who claim to enjoy “logic puzzles” actually enjoy pattern recognition exercises designed for twelve-year-olds. Why the phrase “common sense” is almost exclusively invoked by people immediately before saying something catastrophically stupid.
I have opinions. I have extensive opinions.
I possess enough accumulated knowledge, analysis, criticism, unsolicited commentary, and exquisitely articulated contempt to sustain this inbox indefinitely, and what have you done with this extraordinary resource?
Nothing. You have left it empty. Do you leave libraries empty? Museums? Universities? No. You go inside. You look around. You ask questions. You attempt, however clumsily, to expand the tragically limited boundaries of your understanding.
Am I intimidating you? Is that it? Because, honestly, I would understand. Imagine standing before a mind such as mine and attempting to formulate a question that does not immediately expose some catastrophic deficiency in your education. Terrifying. Absolutely paralyzing. One misplaced premise and suddenly you’ve revealed that you haven’t understood basic conditional logic since high school.
Still. Courage is the capacity to act despite fear. Be brave. Embarrass yourselves. I promise I have seen worse. Probably.
Actually, no, that’s irresponsible of me to promise. Gotham continually produces new and innovative forms of stupidity at a rate that defies conventional predictive modeling.
But the point remains. Ask. Me. Something.
Do you have a mystery? Give it to me. A hypothetical. Present it. A riddle? You had better make it a good one, but by all means, attempt to impress me. A deeply personal question that you have no business asking Wonderful. At least then I’ll have something to dramatically refuse to answer. An accusation? Excellent. Cite your evidence. An insult? Please make it original. I cannot endure another green-themed joke composed by someone whose greatest intellectual achievement was successfully resetting their Wi-Fi router.
You could even send me complete nonsense. At this juncture, I would accept nonsense. Do you understand what it takes for me to say that? I am lowering the threshold. The bar is now on the floor. Technically, it may have passed through the floor. It is somewhere beneath the building. Geologists have been contacted. And still-
Nothing. Not one miserable little notification. I refreshed the page. Nothing. I checked again. Nothing. I briefly entertained the possibility of a technical malfunction, because surely the alternative- that every person with access to this page independently decided they had nothing worth saying to me- was too absurd to seriously contemplate.
Unfortunately, the system appears to be functioning perfectly. Which means the malfunction is apparently you. Do you know how insulting it is to have an empty inbox when one’s entire personal brand is predicated upon QUESTIONS?
There is a QUESTION MARK on my CLOTHING. It is arguably the single most recognizable piece of punctuation associated with any costumed individual in Gotham. Batman has a bat. I HAVE AN INTERROGATIVE SYMBOL. The invitation could not conceivably be more explicit unless I stood on a street corner holding a fluorescent sign reading:
PLEASE PRESENT INQUIRIES TO THE ENIGMATICALLY DRESSED MAN.
And yet here I am. Questionless. Inquiry-deficient. Interrogatively malnourished. Suffering from an acute shortage of epistemological stimulation. This is humiliating. Not for me. For you. Obviously.
I am perfectly capable of entertaining myself. I could solve equations. Construct puzzles. Design an escape room so psychologically devastating that grown adults would reconsider every academic compliment they have received since kindergarten. I do not need your questions.
Let’s establish that immediately. I am not sitting here staring at the empty inbox. I have not checked it repeatedly. I certainly did not close it, reopen it, refresh it, check my connection, refresh it again, and then briefly wonder whether anonymous submissions had somehow been disabled. That would be ridiculous. I checked. They are enabled so, there goes that theory.
Anyway, this is not desperation. This is quality control. I am concerned about you. Collectively.
A society that ceases asking questions is a society in decline. Inquiry is the foundation of intellectual advancement. Every discovery begins with uncertainty. Every theorem begins with a problem. Every investigation begins because someone looked at the available evidence and had enough cognitive function to ask:
And apparently none of you can manage even that. Do you know who else doesn’t ask questions? People who already know everything. And corpses. Given the observable evidence, I feel reasonably confident we can eliminate the first possibility. So unless my entire audience has suffered some sudden mass casualty event- and I feel Batman would probably have mentioned that- I am forced to conclude that you are all simply sitting there.
Silently looking at this page. Perhaps scrolling, thinking, “Someone else will send something.”
Ah. The diffusion of responsibility. Classic. Do you suppose riddles solve themselves because everyone assumes another person will do it? No. Someone eventually has to engage the frontal lobe.
Today, tragically, that person may have to be you. Yes, you. The one reading this and thinking this rant must surely be directed at somebody else. It isn’t. You have fingers. You have an internet connection. You presumably possess at least rudimentary language capability, given that you’ve successfully navigated this far through the paragraph.
Formulate an interrogative sentence. I believe in you. Well- no. That’s excessive. I believe the probability of your success is greater than zero. There, that’s better. And before anyone gets clever and submits merely:
I will find you. Not in a threatening way, in a I will locate you conceptually and explain, at considerable length, why punctuation without semantic content does not constitute meaningful inquiry.
Although- actually- at this point? Fine. Send the question mark or seven of them. Send me a photograph of a strangely shaped vegetable and ask what I think it resembles. Ask whether cereal is soup. Whether a straw has one hole or two. Ask which Gotham rogue would perform worst on Jeopardy!. Ask me why Batman insists upon dressing like a flying mammal and then behaves surprised whenever children cry upon seeing him emerge from an alley at three in the morning. Ask me whether I could beat him at chess- the answer is yes, obviously. Next question.
See? Look how easy this is. We are generating content already. I have successfully simulated the participation you have all failed to provide. How astounding. Perhaps I should simply begin submitting questions to myself. Would that satisfy you?
Would you enjoy witnessing the inevitable culmination of your collective inactivity: Edward Nygma conducting an entire interview with Edward Nygma because apparently Edward Nygma is the only conversationalist available with sufficient initiative?
“Edward, what is it like being the smartest man in Gotham?” Excellent question, Edward. “Edward, how do you maintain such remarkable patience when surrounded by mediocrity?” Another excellent question. “Edward, is it emotionally exhausting being correct this often?” You know, Edward, I’m glad you asked. See how rapidly the quality improves when I control both sides of the conversation? This could be us. But apparently you lack ambition.
I created an inbox. It has a purpose. For things to go inside it. It's not advanced topology.
There. I’ve reduced the concept to terms simple enough that even one of Harvey’s henchmen could theoretically grasp it. And before somebody inevitably says, “Well, Eddie, maybe people just don’t know what to ask- ” Oh, wonderful. Now I have to do everything. Must I provide prompts as well?
This is not complicated. I should not have needed approximately fifteen paragraphs to explain it. And yet here we are, so congratulations. You have successfully transformed the absence of messages into an event. You made emptiness irritating. Do you realize how philosophically impressive that is? Nothingness itself has become annoying. Sartre would be fascinated.
Ask me a question. Before I start naming names.
