Of Ideas in Small Talks

How generic can your daily conversation be?

In fulfilling our need for social interaction, often we resort to trivia: weather, cars, haircuts, bosses and colleagues, and so on. Yet it is also undeniably true that if the conversation were merely a talk to kill time, we wouldn't want to spend a lot of time thinking about what to say, and instead pick up a topic that's related or merely close to where you are or who you are with: weather, cars, haircuts, bosses and colleagues. Hence, your conversation topic revolves around the arbitrary conditions that are neither absolute nor eternal - thus the discussion is insignificant. You feel that you are wasting your time socializing, or at least that's what it is usually like for me. Then a question comes to mind: if it was truly necessary to be socially content, what can be discussed to cook up better conversations?

The answer is: two random concept brought together in a question. Throw it into a group of unique personalities and you get an elaborate discussion.

Take an example of how this blog comes about. It was dinner time, and this group of people, off from work, decided to have yet another dinner at the McDonalds. They were totally minding their own business, eating their hard-earned fast foods when one little bastard came up with two concepts - "pursuit of happiness" and "evolutionary advantage" -  and made it a question: is the pursuit of happiness an evolutionary advantage? Then it happened: a clash of opinions, inspections on definitions from each other, conversation like never before. And when the clock forcefully brought us the farewells of the day, they thought of making their discussion more concrete: a web log.

The Questioners' Queue, then, is a platform for us to ask questions of all variety, from different perspective, to all that may read and respond. Yet it is also a platform to record our discussion, our attempts to answer these questions.Last year, I encountered an internet comic pointing out that questions are much more important than answers, for quite a list of reasons. Personally, I believe that questions and their answers have a more dynamic relations: an answered questions may or may not lead to another question, while an unanswered ones are leading us to questions regarding the foundation of our understanding. One cannot evolve without another, and hence it is important to keep eyes on both new questions and creative answers. However, as questions may be asked faster than it can be pondered over and answered satisfyingly, the evolution of questions and answer is not at an equilibrium, and questioners need to line up and wait for their answers.

Therefore, be prepared for discussions that attempts to transcend many ideas with questions all over the topic, which may and may not have an attempt at an answer. As readers, it is also possible to have your own questions answered, just by contacting one of the authors. Lastly, know that our discussion may not be interesting to everyone, but should it be?