Why don’t we ask more interesting Questions?

Last year I bought “The Daily Stoic Journal – 366 days of writing and reflection on the art of living” which I promptly placed on a pile on my desk and forgot about

Until, that is, returning to my Carpathian mountain house this week - where it had been lying.

It’s a diary of a rather special sort which starts each week with a one-page statement of the theme for that week – the first week’s challenges us to explore the distinction between the things we can control and those we can’t. What follows are lined pages with a question for each day to encourage your thoughts to run free eg (for that first week)

·       What things are truly in my control?

·       What am I learning and studying for?

·       What can I say no to – so that I can say yes to what matters?

·       Am I seeing clearly? Acting generously? Accepting what I can’t change?

·       What is my purpose in life?

·       What do I stand for?

·       How do I keep my mind clear from pollution?

 Who could resist such questions? Well I could when I brought the book home – it’s lain around for a year. But I seem to be in the mood to deal with it now – and I have started to scribble my immediate responses. It is indeed a useful discipline!

When you change location, there is often a joyful serendipity in the rediscovery of a forgotten book. It’s one of the reasons why I’m so fond of the little libraries or bookshops you sometimes come across in the odd café or bar

And the questions very much remind me of Dave Pollard’s blogposts which synthesise material brilliantly and often pose great questions such as “what exactly is it that makes for a great question?” to which he suggests - 

       1.      elicits honest, thoughtful answers rather than clever, safe, automatic or socially acceptable ones

2.     is not so personal, so complicated, or so distressing to think about that it makes people hesitant to answer, but is personal enough, challenging enough, and provocative enough to elicit sufficient consideration, focus and passion to produce interesting, revelatory and possibly ‘useful’ responses

3.     encourages follow-up questions and deeper explorations into the answers and reasons for them.

4.     achieves one or more of the following benefits:

·       knowledge, ideas, perspectives, deeper understanding, and/or insights that otherwise wouldn’t have been achieved, that helps move things forward and provides a better understanding of the situation (Why are things this way and not that way; what’s actually happening here and why; who else should we talk with; what’s working and not working?)

·       appreciation of what we don’t know, need to know, and/or can’t hope to know (What are we trying to achieve, and why, and why do we care; what do we need to find out?)

·       surfacing novel ideas and alternatives (What if we…; how might we…; and imagine if..?)

·       helping us learn important and/or interesting things about ourselves and others (How do you feel about…; what do you think/believe about…; what do you wish…; what would you do if…; what if you could…?) 

A casual use of google-search unearthed a useful-looking primer https://www.sparc.bc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/the-art-of-powerful-questions.pdf. But the greatest person at asking questions (in full public view) was the Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci – celebrated here by Chris Hitchens (no slouch himself). Fallaci did revealing interview with figures such as Robert Kennedy, Kissinger, Arafat, Khomenei, Gadafietc – on the basis of intensive research evident in her “Interviews with History and Power” (2011) 

Biggest waste of my time were the questions asked in the interviews we used to have for the top jobs in the Region – “we” being the 6 or 7 senior councillors who formed the panel. We may have been supplied with a specification of what were considered the personality traits required in the job – although I have no recollection of being given an indication of how the candidates had fared in the screening which will have gone on before they reached the interviews with the politicians. It meant having to devote a day to the interviews – with an hour for each candidate each of whom will have tried to guess in advance the questions and prepare accordingly eg Why do you think you are well-suited for this job?

CVs are suspect – they’re for PR. Noone will admit any failures. And first impressions count

Let me finish on a more personal note. Today’s entry for “The Daily Stoic Journal” asks “What mentors do I follow - dead or alive”? Good question = although I might quibble and suggest that’s not really an appropriate question for someone my age who has been out of the job market for a decade.

Mentors are people you look(ed) up to – who remain sufficiently important in your life to make you wonder how they might have dealt with a question.  As I reflect, I realise that most of the names I come up with are dead eg Bertrand Russell although Charles Handy has always been an inspiration.