The Hardest Question

When I was a kid, there were loads of things I didn’t know. In fact, there were so many things that I not only didn’t know, but also had very little prospect of figuring out, that I’d have to compartmentalize those questions into a category of “maybe I’ll know one day” or “this would take years to find out.”

Of course, the vast majority of these things are much easier to find out now! In seconds, you can find out who starred in what film 50 years ago, or what in the world IYKYK means (IYKYK). In minutes, you can find out much deeper and more meaningful information, and if you’re willing to take a couple of hours, as I am each day, you can do a deep dive into a subject.

The ability to satisfy my curiosity for myself, and to quickly resolve any differences by just looking something up—that’s a complete game-changer. No longer do you need to carry that compartmentalized bucket around, or at least that bucket is much, much lighter now that so many questions can be answered.

At the same time, there was an insistence on showing everyone how smart you were by pretending there weren’t lacks in your knowledge… at least in certain areas. It was okay not to know the capitol of Luxembourg (IYKYK), but it was definitely not okay not to know what your favorite pop star was up to.

I’m making up the thing about the pop star because middle and high school was a long time ago, but there was all sorts of tribal knowledge like that you were just supposed to know, and if you didn’t, you were not included in the group.

Solving differential equations and analyzing Shakespeare weren’t easy for a kid my age, but they were grains of sand as compared to the Everest that was solving the puzzle of conformity. Therefore, the hardest question for me in school wasn’t one I was asked to answer, but one I was afraid to ask:

“What is this thing that you seem to think I’m supposed to know about?”

Not conforming was not an option during the 1980s. You can see the sort of dreary status quo presented in Apple’s famous 1984 ad, where Big Brother has turned everyone into a gigantic sea of identical fish.

It wasn’t just the conformity that was important, though. If it was, then I could just refer you to what I’ve already written about this:

Asking questions in class certainly made you stand out, and you really, really didn’t want to do that. You were, in fact, terrified of standing out more than almost anything else in life.

Being compelled to conform meant not being publicly curious. Naturally, a lot of my curiosity ended up in private endeavors, like collecting and drawing comic books, playing D&D, and reading a lot of sci-fi, fantasy, and horror. Some of those interests made me who I am today.

But the lack of “permission” to be curious was itself a curious thing.

No, there was more than this, too. There was the insistence that I look smart to my peers. I had to pretend as though I knew some things that I didn’t really know, in order to blend in better and avoid what I thought would be a catastrophic embarrassment.

This might have been my first lesson in “fake it til’ you make it.”

It taught me how to hide among a crowd, but it also kept me from asking embarrassing questions.

Guess what one of my favorite things in the whole world to do is today?

Yep. I love asking those embarrassing questions. I love to ask how the Romans pooped, or what a booger is, or to speculate who the richest person ever was. If it could be perceived as awkward or uncomfortable, I want to know!

The best part is that I can simply go and ask that difficult question. It’s just that I don’t have to ask a human; I can turn to the vast intellect of the human species and tap into all minds at once by peering deep into the internet.

Asking that tough question and getting answers is intoxicating. It inspires one to start asking silly questions in real life, or at least it has done so for me. I’m often the one person in a room who will ask the most probing questions. It’s not because I’m smart enough to consider angles others haven’t yet considered, so much as that I am unafraid to look like a dummy.

I no longer feel the need to prove that I know things about social norms, either. In fact, it has become a part of my schtick lately to point out how much of these types of things I don’t know.

In a way, I feel like I had to grow up in order to become a kid again (see what I did there?), allowing that inherent curiosity to return once again. It’s been firmly in the driver’s seat for a long time now.

Nowadays I get my kicks from a different sort of question. I like to look around the room and ask myself: what’s the one question everyone is afraid to ask because they think everyone else already knows the answer?

I’ve come to regard not asking the silly questions as far sillier, but then again, there are situations where the pressure not to look like a fool can overwhelm one’s desire to understand.

What about you—do you feel like you have permission from yourself to ask questions that might make you look silly?