If I can isolate the moment right before I fall asleep and savor my awareness of it, will I find God, or at least meet some really, really nice people?
If I stay on the phone long enough to reach a human at Best Buy, will I receive bonus points when the afterlife comes? Will I get any extra credit if the Best Buy theme song, interrupted here and there by a ringing phone that never entices a human to answer it, plays in my head for days?
If I can figure out why people enjoy running, biking, and/or yoga, will I get a present in the mail?
If I buy something full price on Black Friday, just because that’s when visitors can drive me to the store, will someone remember and throw in a discount later on, either financial or, better yet, emotional?
If I can be friendly and classy with a mean person, or the person who gave my work a rotten review, or the one who overlooked me when I needed a little boost they could have offered, will someone, somewhere, embrace me despite all the problems I have wreaked?
If I start to see the world as something way larger than myself, will I become way larger than myself? If so, what would happen to my current self? Would it grow larger and brighter, or simply cease to exist? Or both, or neither: maybe something else entirely that I can’t imagine right now?
If I find a place where I belong, will I stop belonging with myself?
If I decide that success doesn’t matter, would that be like taking a billion steps forward? Or more like a billion steps backward? Or would it just mean standing in place, hoping for some new, more meaningful shift?
Is it possible I’ve known the important answers all along, and the key is simply to remember?
Are we born with the basics set: how long we will live, how we will die, and how our health will wax and wane? If so, why not eat a bag of fried Oreos?
Do humans always need something noble to strive for, or can they sometimes thrive by sitting on the couch and arguing with each other about who was more obnoxious?
Is it ever OK to change your seat because the guy across from you spits when he eats? Does this hinge on whether you can make people believe that the problem lies in your chair?
Is there a vast, glorious plane where all the lost hats, scarves, cards, and gloves hang out? If we ever find it, will Buddhists have to stay away and soak in the doctrine of non-attachment?
Would lost friends, family members, and teachers hang out in a similar place, or is that a different issue entirely?
If I found my cards (!) — the ones I was sure had vanished into some kind of mist that I would never be able to access — does this mean that a bold new insight is coming my way?
When I connect finding cards with finding insight, am I being crazy and unrealistic? Wise and appropriately hopeful? Or just a weird, weird case who is completely out of touch with how the universe works?
If asking these questions makes me feel better, is that a kind of answer?
If asking these questions makes me feel worse, is that a kind of answer?
Is it possible that “dead” and “alive” are false constructs that we could see beyond, if only we could figure out how to enjoy the chocolate covered pears in just the right way?
If I stop feeling bitter, will I start feeling God?
If I worry that spelling out “God” will make some Orthodox Jews not want to share these questions on Facebook, does that mean I’ve lost the game once and for all?
Does thinking even for one minute that this all might be a game mean that I am missing the whole point of everything?
How will I know when I have asked the right number of questions?
Is there a right number of questions? Does wondering whether there might be a right or wrong number of questions say something profoundly unflattering about who I am, where I have been, and where I am likely to go?
Should I hang out in a café and ask other people these questions? If I do that, will people laugh at me? If they laugh and I keep going with my questions, would someone, somewhere, be proud of me? Would someone else scorn me for wasting my time on a useless venture? Does the mere fact that I would wonder about an external judge of my actions suggest that I am not very profound, or even very interesting?
Is it possible that there are actually no questions, and thus, no answers? Could asking questions do nothing but lead me down false paths? If so, I can’t worry about it. If I stop asking questions, I’ll only get more into my other deep pleasures… and it’s good to love something that has no calories.
Could asking questions be the answer? Meaningless riddles like that normally depress me. One last question for now: could meaningless riddles actually be packed with meaning? I’ll never stop asking. Let the answers start to come. And if they’ve already started to come, may I realize, and may you realize. May we find meaning in meaninglessness, and insignificance in meanings that make us cringe. Let us eat, drink, rejoice… and ask.
Image Credit: Dino Reichmuth, unsplash.com
