The Question

If you read this blog, and fuck you if you don't, you should probably know what I do for a "living" (carefully chosen word there). As a part and parcel of my job I have to ask a lot of people, a lot of questions. Generally, the rule I try to follow when asking these questions is that I already know the answer. The old saying "don't ask a question you don't know the answer to" is pretty accurate in my line of work, and I don't like surprises. It is something that the people I am asking my questions of just can't seem to grasp. How do I know all of these things, well I could say that I am a hard worker, and do my research in advance, but that would be a lie. I am not a particularly hard worker, but I do manage to figure out the answers to my questions in advance. It isn't magic, but I sure sometimes enjoy making it look like it is. It takes the mystery out of the whole thing, but I am not David Copperfield, I don't need illusion and mystery in my working life.

Of course this habit of mine has bled over into my "personal" life, and I sometimes, to the annoyance of my friends, ask them questions that I already know the answer to. It is, by all accounts, not an endearing quality, and I need all the endearing qualities I can get. The problem that I have noticed lately, and it is a problem, or this blog post wouldn't exist is that I am taking this little habit too far. I have began to notice that the only questions that I DO ask are the ones I already know the answer to, and by default not asking questions that I don't know the answer to. This does take a lot of the mystery out of life, but it also deprives me of a lot of information.

I would suspect this habit of mine makes it somewhat difficult to be my friend, and it might be a part of the reason that I have so few of them. I can only hope that admitting that I have this "problem" is the first step on the road to solving the problem. However, there is one small obstacle on this road to being a better friend, and it is one that must be over come first. It is actually quite a large obstacle, and finding it is only half the problem. This obstacle, this barrier, this wall that I must get around is simply this, I have to spent a considerable amount of time asking the one person in the world that I don't want to ask questions that I don't know the answer to. Of course, you will have guessed by now who that person is, it is myself, and I know it seems silly to think that I can ask myself a question I don't know the answer to, but that is about as clearly as I can put it. Let's just hope that I don't do it aloud in a public place, and get carted off to a rest home for the rest of my life. And, let's hope that if I am able to finally answer myself, that I can live with the answer I give myself.