The Workshop · The Questioner
Open Questions
what he asked, and never went back to close
He is a man who ends on the question, never the answer. The workshop read all ninety-nine essays and kept the ones he asked of himself and left open. They are printed here word for word, each with a dashed line where the answer would go. Some of the hundred days exist to close a few of these. Most, he suspects, never will.
“Am I a student, a teacher, an architect, an urban designer, a writer, or what?”
“Why did I work myself so hard for no concrete result?”
“How did I get into MIT then?”
“How did I end up studying China?”
“If we strip everything down, what's wrong with being who we are?”
“Can one love someone and have sex with someone else?”
“Why pretend to be someone else you are not?”
“Freedom from what?”
“What does it mean to be happy?”
“Why can't just being okay be good enough?”
“How many people does it take to make your life into a spiritual practice?”
“What if my life is just one of those 10 billion neurons in someone's brain?”
“Would I be okay if this is my last post?”
“Have you ever felt disgusted by your own existence?”
“Why, lately, I have felt so beaten up?”
“Did I consciously not wantibg him to die?”
“What right do we have to give birth to someone else when we don't even know what life is?”
“What happen if the child doesn't want to take care of us once we are old?”