“we define our dialogue and, in a sense, our future through questions we choose to address. Asking the wrong questions puts us in the philosopher’s dilemma: we become the blind man looking in a dark room for a a black cat that is not there.”
So opens part one of Peter Block’s book The Answer to How is Yes.
This opening section Peter hammers away at how “how” is a deflector from acting. In other words it is an ego piece that prevents us, or allows us to hide behind acting. He says “choosing to act on ‘what matters’ is the choice to live a passionate existence, which is anything but controlled and predictable.” (p. 7)
He is interested in exploring how risk and adventure, which we all crave, we actually prefer to crave at a distance… and we keep distance by asking all sorts of questions that keep the pursuit impossibly at arms length. We like Man versus Wild on tv, we secretly hope we could do the same, and we verbalize if given the possibility we would…but really? Don’t we want to keep this stuff at a distance and isn’t that an illustration of how we feel about our deepest passions too?
He suggests the most common question we ask is ‘how?’ We as quickly as possible reduce the questions of purpose and meaning and passion and fire down to the practical considerations which in the grand scheme of things matter little if the passion, meaning and purpose are calling us forward. He gives six versions of the ‘hows’ we ask to keep acting at bay.
Do you ask how questions to stall risk engagment? What kind of how questions?
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
how should I answer this? cleverly, seriously, honestly, gratefully, humbly, profoundly, or how about just physically. Move my fingers up and down and just see what happens. Hmm its working so far and its easy. Oh I forgot, PASSIONATELY WITH ALL CAPS!!!
If answer just one way it matters, if I answer another way that also has an impact another way. How matters but which of my How’s matter the most to you? That might be a way of looking at HOW.
cleverly – what difference does it make if the room is dark and the cat is black if the guy is blind?
seriously –
I. First part of the Question: Yes.
Second part, a. who is the one really asking me to do this? b. How can I be sure of this source through the long haul when I have to deal with the push back? 3. How will I justify the risk of this impact on those I am already risking to give to?
honestly – you killed me with the survivor guy thing. OUCH!
humbly – Since passion does not mean loud and large aspects of meaning do not need to be readily seen by others or even by ourselves. If I give myself fully to the very moment what more can I give.
profoundly – How is not wrong as much as it is irrelevant to the bigger questions. What is more important is not the questions we ask but the order in which we put them. First the heavenly Who, Why and What then the earthly Who, Why and What.