Recently, I came upon W.H. Auden’s proposal for the two questions “about which all men [and presumably women] … seek clarification.” They are:
- Who am I? What is the difference between man and all other creatures? What relations are possible between them? What is man’s status in the universe? What are the conditions of his existence which he must accept as his fate which no wishing can alter?
- Whom ought I to become? What are the characteristics of the hero [heroine?], the authentic man whom everybody should admire and try to become? Vice versa, what are the characteristics of the churl, the inauthentic man whom everybody should try to avoid becoming? (from The Dyer’s Hand)
These questions reminded me of Gauguin’s inscription on the face of his great painting: “Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?” Not so different – except Gauguin wants to know where we came from, and maybe Auden thinks that is implied in the first question. In any case they are big questions, and they got me thinking about big questions and little questions and old age.
I have written about questions before (“Three Questions – Or More”), and so you know how important I think it is to ask the right question. This is not easy – there is even a famous paradox from Plato called “Meno’s Paradox,” which basically asks how I can ask the right question if I do not know what the answer is. “A man cannot enquire either about that which he knows, or about that which he does not know; for if he knows, he has no need to enquire; and if not, he cannot; for he does not know the very subject about which he is to enquire.” So says Socrates, but – being Socrates – this does not stop him from asking questions, and it should not stop us. Formulating questions is a skill; equally important is knowing that there are some questions not worth asking.
The big questions seem to belong to youth, to long nights of smoking cigarettes (or something) on a warm beach with the future in front of us. We still thought we had some control over the future – and maybe we did – but surely not to the extent that our facile minds were assuming. And we surely had no control over the passage of time.
But the Buddha says that the “big” questions aren’t worth asking (or answering) – both because they are far too complicated to waste our time with and because the big questions do not affect our daily lives. Questions like “What am I? How am I? Where has this being come from? Where is it bound?” (MN2) are just a matter of spinning our wheels, according to the Buddha, and do not eliminate suffering.
On the other hand, the Buddha does force us to question everything else about our lives, particularly our actions and assumptions:
Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and the benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it. (Kalama Sutta)
In other words, observe and analyze and adjust your actions accordingly. Try something and then interrogate yourself as to whether it worked. Review your day to see if your actions relieved or created suffering – yours or someone else’s. This would seem to be something we could and should do in old age, at all ages.
I spent a great deal of time in my youth asking the big questions, but to little avail. Is old age perhaps the time for the little questions? Side note: I googled “Questions of old age” and got pages of suggested questions to ask old people – in case you don’t know how to hold a conversation with your grandmother, perhaps? Google (and various experts) suggested questions like “How did you get to school when you were a kid?” Whereas, if you google questions for young adults, you get big philosophical questions that such people might be asking themselves. Senior citizens apparently are not only hard to talk to, but have no inner life. At least according to Google.
What do little questions look like? Let’s start with a daily review of what worked (caused less suffering in the Buddha’s terms) and what did not work (caused more suffering). Like Benjamin Franklin with his ivory tablet of desired character traits, we could daily interrogate how we are doing. For example, did we feel better for having taken a walk in the afternoon? Was it worthwhile making scones for our neighbor who is laid up after surgery? Did I sleep better when I skipped my afternoon coffee break? Who did I talk to today that made me feel… better? Who made me feel worse? Did I really feel better after I bought that new jacket? Drank that second cup of coffee? Surfed the net for two hours? Is that new medication really helping? Do I feel better or worse after a nap? Little questions, but isn’t that the stuff of real life? Does it help me more to know where I stand in the cosmos or to review where I stand with my neighbors? Or what gives me peace and what makes me worry all day?
Old people are famous for worrying over little things, which is precisely why we should interrogate fiercely what we spend time worrying about. Did fretting over the lack of a phone call from a loved one ruin my day? Did it make them call any faster? These are the kinds of small questions we should be asking ourselves, and then we must be open to act on the answers.
I am not trying to discourage you from asking the big questions (and if you’ve found the answers, please share), but it is the daily events that form a life. We elders know that by now.
If you are looking for a story, “A Spoonful of Sugar” is about a woman who confronts the big question of mortality, and answers it with her attention to… cookies.
When I Come To Be Old 