QUESTIONS OF ABSOLUTELY NO CONSEQUENCE

Important matters requiring absolutely no resolution whatsoever.

DELIGHT No. 3

Some questions demand answers.

Where are my keys?

Did I turn off the stove?

When is that bill due?

Why is the dog suspiciously quiet?

That last one should probably be investigated immediately.

😂

But there is another category of question.

Questions that solve nothing.

Improve nothing.

Accomplish nothing.

And are therefore, naturally, some of my favorites.

For example:

If clouds had pockets, what would they keep in them?

There.

Your day is already slightly different.

We Don't Ask Enough Ridiculous Questions

Children are excellent at this.

They haven't yet learned which questions are supposedly worth asking.

So they wonder:

Where does the moon go during the day?

Do fish get thirsty?

Can worms walk backward?

What language do babies think in?

Does the dog know his name is a name?

Why doesn't glue stick to the inside of the bottle?

Some of those actually have answers.

That is beside the point.

The important thing is the willingness to look at something completely ordinary and think:

Wait a minute...

Adults tend to become answer people.

We Google.

We explain.

We categorize.

We settle things.

Today, we shall settle absolutely nothing.

Please Consider the Following

If a ghost wore shoes, would the shoes also have to be ghosts?

If you replace every part of a broom over many years, at what point is it a different broom?

Actually, philosophers have been arguing about something suspiciously similar for centuries.

They clearly needed better hobbies.

😂

If animals could leave reviews for humans, what would yours say?

Do birds think airplanes are showing off?

If your house could choose one room as its favorite, which would it pick?

If Tuesday were a color, what color would it be?

How many squirrels would have to gather in one place before you became concerned?

If your reflection blinked half a second after you did—

how long would you stand there checking?

If a snail loses its shell, is it homeless or naked?

Please do not send complaints to the Department of Mollusks.

We are understaffed.

Some Questions Reveal Things Anyway

This is an unfortunate side effect.

Ask someone:

If you could have one completely useless superpower, what would it be?

And suddenly you know something about them.

Maybe they want the ability to perfectly toast bread from across the room.

Maybe they want to know the name of every dog they pass.

Maybe they want every fitted sheet they fold to cooperate immediately.

That last one may be too powerful.

We need regulations.

Ask:

If you could shrink one ordinary place and keep it in your pocket, where would it be?

Someone says their grandmother's kitchen.

Someone else says the beach.

Someone says the front porch of the house where they grew up.

Oh dear.

We're getting meaningful again.

Quick.

Emergency Question

Would you rather have:

one duck the size of a horse

or

twenty horses the size of ducks?

There.

Crisis averted.

The Question Jar

This one deserves to become something visitors can actually do.

Take scraps of paper.

Write one ridiculous question on each.

Fold them.

Put them in a jar.

At dinner, during a gathering, in a classroom, with grandchildren, with friends—or when conversation has become tragically sensible—

draw one.

Everyone must answer.

There are only two rules:

No answer may be criticized.

And:

The more confidently ridiculous the explanation, the better.

Imagine:

If trees could choose where they grew, where would they move?

One person says beside the ocean.

Another says next to a bakery.

Someone insists trees would remain exactly where they are because moving would be exhausting.

All acceptable.

The tree has declined to comment.

Borrow Someone Else's Imagination

One of the loveliest things about ridiculous questions is discovering that other people don't imagine the same things you do.

Ask five people:

What do stars sound like?

You may get:

bells,

static,

whispers,

crackling fire,

a choir,

complete silence,

or something nobody else would have thought of.

There is no correct answer.

There is simply that marvelous moment when someone opens a little door in their mind and lets you peek inside.

That's worth asking for.

Today's Extremely Serious Inquiry

I have prepared one question for you.

Please give it the consideration it deserves.

Imagine you discover a tiny door in the trunk of an old tree.

You knock.

Something knocks back.

What do you do next?

There is no correct response.

Although anyone answering “leave immediately” is demonstrating considerably better survival instincts than the rest of us.

😂