When we’re children, we see things for the first time, experience things for the first time, and our reaction is pure. We question the world too, asking stuff that we would never ask again because we’d grow up and develop a narrower mind. It’s true. Our minds are very open when we’re young, and then the experiences start to define us, and we close our minds, so that we don’t have to think about stuff we can’t comprehend.

What makes philosophers great is that they never stop questioning, and their minds become as open as the world around them. Though some of them still have narrow-minded approaches to certain things (*cough*Aristotle*cough*), they still see the world in a way that very few do. They would ask the simple questions that nobody would ever answer. It’s not about receiving the answer, but about letting the question out in the first place. In today’s society, we are still deeply narrow-minded and more selfish than we have ever been in history. We don’t stop to think about why we get scared over trivial things like doing a presentation in class (one of my own fears) when we actually have the advantage of education. Education is supposed to broaden our minds but, in my opinion, it does the opposite. This is simply because we learn stuff to do well in exams and exams are all we ever see in education. We don’t think about the bigger picture. As well as this, we don’t get taught about the bigger picture. We get taught things that will never matter, they’re only for an exam paper. Back in the day, there were philosophy schools, founded by some great philosophers, like Plato. If more schools taught us about philosophy and the questions that really matter, then we wouldn’t worry about our future so much. The future is a very temporary thing, as we are very temporary. We worry about our own tiny lives, without realising that our own lives are very trivial in the grand scheme of things.

Of course, it is a perfectly human trait to worry about yourself, and your own life, but I just like to think about the bigger things sometimes, and that makes me stop worrying, at least temporarily. I think about how our existence is a wonderful thing, yet we continue to abuse it. We are not monsters, but I am sure other species think of us as that. The way we treat the Earth, and the other living beings on it; we were given these minds so that we could use them kindly, but instead we use them like a weapon. Why do we use our minds as a weapon? What are we hiding from? Our minds are tools, and they should be sharpened like other tools, but they should not stab other minds. They should sharpen each other. Then, we’d be able to see the bigger picture, instead of our personal pleasure.

The questions are waiting to be asked. You don’t need to answer them; only ask. Just like when you were a child and you questioned everything. Become like that again.

What questions did you ask when you were children? I asked ones that could be seen as offensive if I wasn’t a child! I was just curious!

Thanks for reading,

Lia