A Mind That Questions

Dostoevsky once said that the world will reach a time when intelligent people will be stopped from thinking and questioning so that they do not offend fools.

- ABID HUSSAIN RATHER

Yes, questioning is dangerous to foolishness because foolishness often relies on blind acceptance rather than thinking deeply or critically. When someone starts questioning, they begin to seek truth, understanding or clarity. Foolishness survives where questions aren't asked.

Analysing deeply, one can find that the entire human civilization stands on questions. Who am I? Who are you? What are clouds? What is the wind? Why does it blow, and why does it stop? Why does the sun always rise in the east? If the Earth is rotating, then what remains still? If all human brains have the same structure, why do some minds work more efficiently while others function less? How do we determine whether the person we consider insane is truly insane? If iron is heavier than water, then why do ships float? How is a civilization born, how does it rise, and how does it perish? How does a thought turn into a belief, and how does the same thought evolve into scientific reasoning? Someone, at some point, must have asked these questions—only then we were able to move from caves to conquering planets and making space our home. Just as silence is the mentor of sounds, a question is the father of an answer. The nature and quality of a question serve as the DNA that reveals our intellectual lineage. A question is the measure by which our intelligence, foolishness and the depth or shallowness of our thinking can be instantly assessed and the landscape of our mind can be quietly surveyed. An answer may be ordinary, but a question is never trivial.