Turning the World Upside Down with WHY

The gist of Socrates’ century old wisdom,” An unexamined life is not worth living,” is after all a powerful three-letter word: WHY.

And when we begin to ask ourselves WHY, we are swept on our toes; uncovering the puzzle, finding answers, proving our ideas one after the other, arguing with others who don’t quite agree, understanding the complexity of human behavior in maintaining healthy relationships, or analyzing conflicts and formulating peace resolutions. In other words, when we begin to ask WHY, we turn the world upside down. We ceaselessly seek answers, boldly question old beliefs, and prove our own little realizations about everything that interests our tireless minds.

Otherwise, we would still be breathing in a square world, where wandering beyond its four corners would mean our end. Like the cavemen in Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave,” we would have remained in the cold and dark caverns of our ignorance and have not done anything about it.

As we are meant to take dominion above all things, we don’t bury talents underground and say we just have made a wise investment. Though out of desperation, like Mumble, we sometimes drop nickels at the foot of Lovelace’s celestial hill of wisdom in search for quick answers to all our queries. Many times we read our horoscopes, seek Feng Shui experts, light prosperity candles in welcoming the New Year, or wear our lucky charms. All of these practices may make us more relaxed in facing an unknown tomorrow. But just as foolish Africans realized that gulping their delicately prepared Maji concoction didn’t really spare them from raining German bullets, we very well know that our superstitions, customs, and traditions, could no longer provide what our complex minds seek for.


And so, we bravely break down the towering conventions of our time to the dismay of those narrow-minded many. What was before considered an insane explanation of our humble beginnings now becomes clear to us. We now welcome the Neanderthal Man as our great, great, great, great grandfather with the discovery of a unique gene, which is known to be found in humans alone. Scientists claim this is the one common thing both homo sapien-sapiens and the prehistoric Neanderthal share after all.

There springs the new creation story modified through years of new discoveries and breakthroughs in Science. Though this story still finds its roots from the great Big Bang, it is a wonder to know that as Science finds objective and credible bases for its claims through careful research and scientific method, its discoveries pave a clearer way for us to digest Thomas Acquinas’ Theory on the Natural Causation of things that strives to explain the existence of God. What made the overpowering and uncontrollable gaseous particles in space explode? What caused the explosion, which of all marvels was the spark of life? What caused these particles to bond together that form every imaginable living creature in earth?

The quest for greater understanding of the human life and the natural world directs and maintains our foothold. To conquer the unknown, solve and find the missing pieces of the puzzle, extend the borders of human knowledge and human capacity, perpetuate everything that is good in humanity through education, Science, and Technology, and even delay death for a moment longer are few of the aims of every society.

Through the slow and gradual process of evolution, man with its complex consciousness came to live and made sweeping changes in the face of the earth from the invention of simple tools that aided his hunting activities, better farming techniques, a new form of writing, the discovery of steel, electricity, oil, conversion of energy, and safer and advanced way of disposing trash, the production of genetically modified organisms and commodity, the creation of virtual reality and biological weapons that would crush the Earth in a split second to God knows what – space expansion leading to space colonies and biological machines that would later outpace mankind unless man decides to alter himself.

Cliché as it may be but the only constant thing around is change. The only way I know to adapt to these changes is our continuous pursuit of knowledge and in having an open-minded, flexible disposition. If not we would be as outdated as analog phones that for recycling purposes are no more but dusty paperweights.

Per Olofsson CEO of ClimateWell, a leading innovator of Solar-powered airconditioning once said, “ Changing behavior is more difficult than changing technology”. Needless to say resistance to change comes from reluctant minds that are no better than Alzheimer’s. But Science has even been known to find some cure for that. As they try to trace the bad protein that leads to such maddening amnesia, who knows they might as well find the rusty brain cells that make up a stagnant mind and would try to fix that one, too.