Finding an Answer

I have written before about the concept of the fourth wall, the idea that you see a fake wall in the form of a stage whilst in truth the real fourth wall is the illusive wall behind the stage you are never meant to see as an observer.  You are instead meant to pay attention to all that is on the stage.  I've written about the ways in which the fourth wall can be broken and you get to see the reality behind the stage.  There is another application of this theory which fascinates me and that is the disappointment in being given an answer.

I never copied anyone in school, from day one of primary school right through to University.  The reason I never copied anyone was because I wanted to learn how to answer the question myself.  If I was simply given the answer, I would not learn why it was the answer and would struggle to be able to do it myself afterword.  There were a mix of people I knew throughout my time in education, there were those who shared my point of view and wanted to figure it out for themselves, and there were those who took the opposing view, who just wanted the answer and sought value in knowing the answer without needing to understand how it was found - these were the people who ended up struggling later when they had to do it themselves.

As far as school was concerned, I wouldn't necessarily say I enjoyed the process of finding the answer, namely because for the most part I had little interest or passion for any of the subjects I studied.  As I said before, it wasn't until college for me really that I actually got to study the things I was really interested in - personally that remains one of the reasons why I believe the education system needs fundamental reform.

Beyond school however there have been many things over the years that I did not know how to do, or questions I did not know the answer to, which I devoted time and energy to learning of my own accord.  Time and again however when you run into the stumbling block that is the limitation of our own deductive reasoning we have to resort to the use of references written by other people and in the extreme we have to resort to actually asking someone who knows more about the things we wish to learn more about.  In doing so however there is often one of three types of people you encounter, the first and most prevalent is the type of person that doesn't want to share their knowledge and expects you to go and figure it out for yourself.  I hate these types of people because no matter how much self study and self teaching you went through to learn what you know, you will have relied on the information compiled by others at some point and if they had taken the same attitude then you would know nothing.  No-one learns what they do through original research and experimentation alone, we build upon the knowledge of others. 

The second type of person you will meet is the type that will just give you the answer, but with no explanation as to why this is the case.  If this is because the person who answers isn't able to explain it or relate it to another person, then I can forgive that bluntness.  There is a lot to be said about the limitation of our understanding and how we can know how to do something but not be able to explain it, that is a valid reason for simply giving the answer.  Language is often an example of this, when a native English speaker talks to someone for whom English is their second language, the native speaker will be able to correct grammatical errors but won't necessarily be able to explain why there is an error, unless the native speaker has an academic background in linguistics or a very firm understanding of the technicalities of the language, in all other cases "it just is" or "we don't say that" is all the speaker can hazard in reply.

The third and final type of person is the type that knows the answer, and is able to explain it - these often take one of two approaches to explanations, the first is to explain it in their way, and the second is to feed you information and ask you questions to lead you to discovering it yourself with their guidance - I don't mind either as the former might not necessarily be easy to comprehend and the latter can relate things more to what you already know.  The former although complete in their reply can often flood the asker with a plenitude of information that although relevant to the answer, may not necessarily be relevant to the asker.  Admittedly the latter can also be frustrating if they are not forthcoming with help when they see the asker struggle to find the solution even with guidance.

I've not included the types of people who don't know the answer, they're not really relevant here except for one, those that don't know but claim they do, this irritates me profusely.  I don't understand why some people seem incapable of simply saying "I don't know" - this isn't that hard to do and there's no shame in admitting it.  I admit it all the time.  It's often the opening statement I will make in response to a question but then I'll follow it with my theories or my ideas and we can discuss the topic together and see if we can find the answer together.

I enjoy the process of finding answers to questions.  I enjoy the practice of analysing information and data and trying to see what conclusions can be drawn.  I enjoy observation and documenting what I see.  I enjoy seeing other people think, it is a form of entertainment for me quite literally.  I like to watch people on YouTube play puzzle games like The Witness because I get to see their thought process in action and I find that fascinating.  I do not enjoy simply being given an answer.  The purpose of a riddle is to make you think, if you are given an answer to the riddle it negates its purpose.  The whole point is to figure it out.