I am instantly reminded of a recent encounter where the question of why actually forced somebody to leave the pleasant conversation I was involved in.
I was at a party, Chicken and Beer to be precise. I was not one of the well connected members at the party in that I knew a few people well, and a few people hardly and a very many people not at all. So I was expecting an uninteresting afternoon, following my close acquaintances around, as my friend put it, with a lot of alcohol but not a lot of substance (he was referring to fraternity parties when he made the comment but I could [probably fairly] assume that he heard it elsewhere and that it was intended for broader application). Unfortunately, I was left alone at some point in the party, so as people are apt to do, I headed towards the beer.
Note: at a party, if you are standing near the keg, you are probably lonely. But fortunately for everybody involved, the alcohol tends to be a focal point, and thus you are bound to happen upon somebody else with whom a rapport can be established.
So there I was standing near the keg expecting only to find one of my friends when they happened towards the same location, when I suddenly became involved in conversation with somebody whose name I do not know. I do not know the initial course of the conversation, but I assume basic pleasantries and introductions took place, and as with most conversations with strangers we familiarized ourselves with our occupations, educations, hobbies and such. My occupation at the time bored me, and I made it readily apparent. But the person with whom I was speaking was not satisfied with my own discontent because I had a better education than they, and I shouldn't be wasting my brain.
I have come upon this conversation many times in my life. Everybody likes to think they can solve other people's problems and I am no different. But having somebody point blank look at you and say "you are smarter than I am", and say "you need to do something with your life", and then aimlessly look for something to peak your interest as if the thought had never occurred to you to think about what to do with your life, piques my sense of condescension. And thus, the why.
If you are forcing your beliefs on somebody else, you better have a damned good reason for it. My personal opinion is that nobody has the right to force beliefs on somebody else, but then again, that point doesn't really mean anything, because its just my belief. But, I asked why. And she clearly didn't understand what I was talking about, because she gave me this odd look as if the question didn't make any sense. I thought it did however, and thus I repeated myself. Why should I do anything, why should I be more productive, why should I do something to help others, why anything.
Now that last one there is where I got into trouble. At some point in the conversation the boyfriend of the instigator of my why moment had stumbled upon us and possibly even had added a few words, but when I got to my why anything, I brought up God. Now everybody says religion and politics and beer don't mix, but I'll be damned if they aren't the most interesting things to mix. Unfortunately, the concept of a higher being scared off the boyfriend. He was apparently not comfortable arguing religious rhetoric against somebody who considers God to be the answer to a question of why. He was an atheist.
I was an atheist at one point, but I asked myself long and hard the question of why and got nowhere. I read a little bit of philosophy, I found it rather boring tedious and obvious (actually a hilarious moment occurred my freshman year at college, somebody was reading socrates for their intro to philosophy class and I called them out on it, and they started to say how important he was in the development of blah blah blah... and started on one of his thoughts, and I actually word for word finished the next two sentences of the dialouge, because most of philosophy is really just logic.... ok I thought it was funny, I guess you had to be there, or maybe it helps to know that the person in question was annoying, no ... nothing? ok I guess its just funny for me but thats why you dont need to read the parenthisized comments along the way). I looked around at the world, and I realized something that I still believe to this day. In my mind the world is too beautiful to be created by random chance. Now, I dont actually believe that, random chance is practically the most beautiful thing out there (fractals are pretty sweet when you think about it), and random chance is surely a driving force in the universe. This realization occurred to me the summer of tenth grade (in fact I wrote my college essay about it), but as I said, I am not here to instill my beliefs on anybody, it was simply an explanation for why I brought it up. My best bet at a true answer to why is God, a being that nobody can begin to understand or concieve of beyond our own hidden dreams and goals of a higher being. My guess as to God's plan is only equally as valid as the guess of the crack head screaming "YALL MY BITCHES" in the streets of baltimore, in broad daylight, at a parking meter. So when I ask why, on some level I am saying please enlighten me, while on an entirely different level I am saying go kill yourself.
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