The Questions and The Answers | Teen Ink

The Questions and The Answers

May 24, 2014
By edaj17 BRONZE, Boone, Iowa
edaj17 BRONZE, Boone, Iowa
4 articles 0 photos 0 comments

I want to sit and think about the things that really matter in this life. The key aspects. The answers. The answers that I’m never questioned over, yet wish I would be. Although, were I questioned on these answers, would the questions ruin the answers? The answers, so pure, so put together, so unlike anything else, should they be left alone? Should the questions never meet the answers, the answers never to be conflicted with the questions, so that the answers can just be? Left alone, only to question themselves, not once questioned by the questions? And even so, should the answers be set to the side, categorized separately from the questions and all else? Or should the answers be grouped together in the same subject area? Although, are the answers a whole in and of themselves? Are the answers one single item, chunked as a single area of subject matter? Or are the answers sprawled separately as several spawns of branches, forever stretching out with no end? And if so, are the several separate branches of the answers some how intertwined, some how connected in relation to one another? Do the separate branches of answers touch or are they stretched so sparingly so that they’ll never feel the warmth of one another? Do the answers reach to touch the questions? Are the answers so desperate to remain unsoiled by the questions that they rest in a separate realm, away from the questions? Is the fear of the questions which belongs to the answers fading so that someday they may touch? But were that to happen, would the touch of the two of them be deadly? Would the questions ruin the answers?


The author's comments:
It was initially intended as a symbolization piece (I really like this piece because since all pieces of work are subjective and subject to different perceptions, which is why I love literature so much, it allows for endless interpretation, especially since it's such a complex topic). When I wrote it, I meant the "answers" not as just the definition of answers, but as the things in life that go beyond what we tend to think of each day, the deeper subjects in life, the topics of deeper conversations and deeper thinking that not everyone does; Of the things that you could survive without thinking about, yet the things you think about because you enjoy thinking on a different level. The things that don't necessarily "matter", like what would happen if everyone lived in a certain way and the world changed in itself as a result, or the way certain things make you feel; whether it be a rush of several emotions simultaneously, or simply a few at a time. Yet they're the things that matter more than things inside the scope of daily thinking; they hold more value than simple daily thought ever could.
And then, I meant the "questions" more as what the word ‘questions’ actually means. "Would the questions ruin the answers?" refers to what would happen if we were tested over those "answers", the deeper thinking, the subjects that don't necessarily have answers when you think about them because they can be perceived so endlessly that any two people could have a totally different answer. So it questions that if we were to be actually tested over those things instead of what we traditionally learn in the educational system, would being questioned over it ruin the act of being able to think freely? Because once you provided your perception or answer to the question you were asked, would you be told that you were wrong and then given a different "answer", provided by whoever was teaching and thus made to believe that you were wrong and that you had to believe what they told you was the answer to something that's so endless and so thought-provoking that it could never hold one single answer?
If that did happen, it would ruin the "answer" or deeper thinking, because it would no longer allow any free thought; it would be alike any other area of learning, such as math, where everything is given a set answer. Therefore it would destroy the reason that thinking on that deeper level on your own holds so much meaning and entertainment at all because it would detract from the entire purpose it once had. This piece portrays that idea through a style that is purposefully made to be confusing and mind-rattling because the topic itself is so complex.

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