Questions Acknowledge Humanity

Today I write to you about myself. Keep in mind, regardless of my last two blog postings I will never be someone who plans on telling you how to think or live your life. Telling you about mine hopefully rings a better tune in your ear and can still accomplish positive resonation.

I just had lunch with a really good friend following one of our classes together. In this class I asked our professor a question about our classroom. This was not a question that this teacher took lightly because he assumed that in regards to my question I wasn’t taking the environment or his authority seriously. Rest assured that although I am remaining exceptionally vague out of respect for these people and this encounter I did not ask what one would refer to as a “dumb question.” To echo this sentiment I do have great respect for said professor and didn’t quite understand his push back at me, especially so blatant and in front of the rest of the class. Another professor asked me to stay after to discuss the issue. This teacher apologized for some of the other teacher’s response to me then asked me to question the reasoning behind my inquisitiveness.

Following this altercation my friend informed me that the question I had asked was on her and other’s minds as well. We began to discuss it. “That seems to be something that really bothers you,” she says, “When people in authority that are hungry for power aren’t willing to accept other’s views.” Apparently she can read me pretty well. She goes on to tell me that I am always asking questions. I am completely aware of this. This day in age people have a hard time understanding and accepting that about me. This is exceptionally difficult to get a grasp on. When I meet someone I want to immediately know them. I want to really know them. If the world was mine and all of the people like me the word “really” that I used in the previous sentence would not be necessary. To me, to know someone is to understand them. Without an account of one’s past, present, future wishes, beliefs, feelings, thoughts and opinions you are unable to understand people. My definition of knowing someone is the closest one can get to walking a day in their shoes.

Questions that I deem completely appropriate on a first encounter basis are questions that scare people. I notice that when I meet people I lean into them and take a genuine, intimate (again, a word I don’t feel like I need to use but this world belongs to tons of people that aren’t like me) interest in who they are, where they come from and why they are the way they are. I observe many, if not 90 percent of these people curl into themselves, become anxiety ridden and look for the nearest exit. Sometimes I jokingly state that I am allergic to small talk. In fact, there is nothing joking to this statement. A huge part of this is webbed into my making. Having become a part of my persona I have accepted it as an aspect of my nature that I have only found myself unsuccessful at taming.

                I remember feeling stifled as a child. There were things I wanted to know and felt keen on asking that other children could not answer nor wished to know. There were so many times that I would ask someone a question and my mother would tell me that it wasn’t appropriate. I remember thinking, what is going on? I love answering questions. I love when people ask me my opinion or what has gone on in my past or why I do or say or think things. I love it when people really want to know me. Why do they act as if I only wish to antagonize them? I only wish to understand these people and treat them with such knowledge in mind. As a child I knew that people did things in response to their life. People did bad things not because they were bad but because something awful had happened to them or they were left out or without a parent figure in their life.

                I wish to know people because I wish more than anything, to know the world. I wish to know other’s opinions and beliefs not because I am looking to challenge them but in my search to know humanity. I come from Wytheville Virginia. The diversity offered me throughout my formative years was few and far between. I wish to not taste but binge and gorge myself on helpings of all kinds of people of the world. I feel the need to know other’s views so that I can learn and entertain them myself.  This is not to say that I won’t challenge other’s thoughts or beliefs, but to say that I only hope to extend my knowledge. I also yearn to be challenged in my views. My greatest hope is to be accepted in my difference of opinion while simultaneously being questioned.

                My friend Sarah goes onto tell me, “I think that your questions come from a place of genuine curiosity but it intimidates people.” I’ve heard this many times in my life. Apparently I am intimidating. “You just bring so much out in people in conversation and that scares some people,” she says. My only response to this is that people should know who they are and own who they are. There is never ANYTHING to be ashamed of from your past…. That’s why they call it your past. It only created a new 2.0 version of you that is more capable, resilient and evolved. Others may not see it that way, but I do.

                I am an English major. Here’s the thing about English majors; our professors expect us to teach the class. We come into class, sit down, the professor briefs us on key points of the reading and what was happening in the world during the time period the literature was written, then he/she asks the most open ended question you think you may have ever heard in your life. The next day, it never fails; you realize that yesterday you were wrong. A few intellectual arms go up; they briefly and articulately state their claim and opinion and the professor looks at them with wonderment and goes into a spiel on why said student was correct. I have been lucky enough to know the singular opinions of two of my English professors. Les Harrison hails from Texas A & M via Miami University (the UVA of Ohio), where he’s from and he may as well have an opinion on angular versus linear plaid. This is his charm and the reasoning behind every English student’s love or hate reaction to the mention of his name. Nick Sharp is the most seasoned English professor at VCU and his passionate thoughts begin with Shakespeare and end with stories of “Back in the day…”

Open minded meets open ended. These are the people I have come to know and love in authority since leaving home to become an adult. They don’t hope to or even consider imposing anything but the notion that you can learn something from reading literature. They will inform us of the history, personal points to know, hand us the baton, maybe shoot that gun one more time, hop in the stands and yell for us to run! This is where respect is established. To be a free thinker is to be able to ask questions, to be able to share opinions and accept opinions.

I am fully aware that if I would back down, even slightly from my belief in truly knowing others, or, if I were to tone down my nature a few notches that life could possibly be easier for me. By easier I mean a more constant, breezy, ebb and flow of circulating nods, yeses, bits and pieces of appeasing, vapid compliments to outfits and tons of “friends.” But I don’t want a quantity of “friends” to do lunch with at Chick-fil-A. Don’t get me wrong, there are days that I can talk Mila and Ashton all day. However this type of conversation needs to be limited to a half of the circumference of a fully rounded conversation as oppose to the entirety of it. I want my 5 to 10 sincere, soul seeking, kindred spirited, down to earth, talk about anything and everything all the time no matter how long it takes, friends. I don’t want to be “liked.” I want to be loved, or unfortunately, hated for what people are immediately told of me from me. This week in a class we were reading Blake’s “Proverbs of Hell”… don’t be afraid. If you haven’t read it, it’s good stuff. Anyway, my favorite line is “Always be ready to speak your mind, and a base man will avoid you.” A base man, I come to find is a bad, scummy person. In Blake’s time this was a gypsy or a posing priest or a deviant criminal who felt compelled to haggle the innocent. Moral of the story; if you make known your convictions initially, they will not be questioned.

You shouldn’t be afraid of yourself or what that means. You shouldn’t be afraid of others or what they bring to the table. The quicker you are to embrace another, the quicker they are to embrace you. Questions bring life to life. Allowing others to know you should never be intimidating, but exciting. If they are hearing it from you then it must be the most true source and content offered. Why not find excitement in this kind of opportunity? Today is a day when you should refuse to allow the world to tell you or anyone else who you are. So "Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." And you can’t go wrong with Dr. Seuss.