questioning
If every encounter is an opportunity for inquiry, how this inquiry unfolds depends on the specific questions you ask. At the most fundamental level, to question something is to acknowledge that its meaning isn’t entirely obvious or self-evident. All questioning starts with a recognition that there are certain things — about what something is, how it works, what it means, why it matters — that you don’t yet know. Given this, it’s helpful to think of questioning as a process by which you sample potential answers or hypotheses, testing them for whether they seem right, reasonable or legitimate. Sometimes this process unfolds as an effort to delve beneath the surface to discover the deeper dynamics and structure of what we’re being shown. At other times it unfolds by directing your attention outward, to its broader context and effects. At still other times it unfolds as an act of introspection, inventorying your own personal reflections and reactions. Whichever the case, one constant holds true: to question is to rethink the presumption of face value, to challenge the idea that “what you see” is automatically or exclusively “what you get.”