Life As Performance Art 191

So, I just answered another dumb question on Quora. The question is dumb because of the way it is written: "What are straight-up facts that people won't swallow?" There is so much wrong with this question, the way it's asked and worded and all the hidden assumptions, that at first I didn't want to dignify it with an answer. So this is what I offered instead: "Oh, I don’t know. I think most people have trouble swallowing anything that is, as you call it, a “straight up fact” I suppose if you would tell us what you mean because that can be pretty subjective. But I think that most of us like things to look pretty rosy and positive since we are all quite fragile and many of us don’t like to face things head on. It doesn’t seem to matter how far along we are in life, we are all for the most part like frightened children who don’t want to face things without bromides and plenty of comforts. I try as hard as I can, and really I don’t seem to have a lot to lose, given that I’m older, alone and without family, but I also have a good social network and friends, so that helps the world seem less cold and hostile. I also try to be a friend to others, and this makes the world even less hostile. If I seem to be evading it’s because I am, especially because a lot of “straight up facts” are also opinion based and I simply don’t want to go there, especially if it touches on religion, or politics or whatever, given how those subjects often bring out the worst in others, should they happen to disagree. But let’s just stick to the basics here, shall we? We never really do completely grow up and we go through our lives not much more than frightened children that are easily scared like chickens by a marauding fox or the big bad wolf, taking shelter in whatever will help us feel safe or protected. Could this be because we seem to always need to feel safe and protected? Well, that also depends on where we are in life. I have seen some people’s mental health tip very dangerously because they were facing things they weren’t ready to face, but I have also seen others compromise their mental health by simply going on whistling in the dark, pretending there is nothing wrong. As for myself, I always like to find the joy in life, or to create it. Am I escaping? Well, that would depend on how you are oriented towards life and the universe. It isn’t going to necessarily be a cold and hostile place for everyone, but this could also depend on how we are oriented spirituality and ethically, how unselfish we are, and how much we love, and how much joy we are willing to take in life and create for ourselves and others, and I think that it is love that makes all the difference, including our ability to face life and reality, and perhaps to alter our sense of reality in a way that fosters what is good and beautiful. But so much of that depends on us and of how willing we are to open ourselves to something that is infinitely lovely and so much greater than ourselves." I don't think we re ever going to find much in the way of answers until we have learned what questions need to be asked first, and how to ask them. I have long believed that we spend the first half of our lives learning what the questions are. After that, we have to learn how to ask them. I think we re always going to be learning how to ask the questions. And that is our answer, Gentle Reader.