Do you ask yourself those questions ?

Ever wondered why you have those questions on life, love and many other themes randomly popping into your mind ? Do you embrace them and take time to reflect on your personal life ? or do you bury them as deep as you can somewhere to make sure they’ll never make it to the surface again ?
It feels to me that during our insignificant life as human beings, we are meant to have these reflexions -and most importantly face them. This is how we grow as evolved primates.

For instance, an obvious example that you can probably relate to is coming to the realisation that the world around us is dictated by physic laws and that magic has very little if anything to do with that. This happens at an early stage of life. For most people, by the time they leave their teenage years behind, they have become aware that they don’t live in a fantasy world.

On the other hand, for one to realize that having the biggest pile of money isn’t necessary gonna make them happy and that they probably should not sacrifice other scare resources (such as time or relations) just for the sake of it is a different story. Many have and will leave this world without even considering the latter though.

As I see it, those reflexions translate very well where we are on our path to growth.
A handful of questions then pop into my mind :

What triggers those questions in one’s mind ?

It seems to me like the concept of comfort zone comes to play -once again.
When everything’s great, everything’s rolling why would you question the way you live or do things ?

To begin with, we need a little something that comes and disturb the narrowness of the mind, the preconceptions that we have on the way things work.
By the way, the simple fact of considering other options, listening to things we are not used to hear, putting yourself into a different environment are a way to get out of your comfort zone. This can be voluntarily induced as much as it can come out of the blue -the lost of a relative, an injury…

Secondly and most importantly if you ask me, you have to spend some time with your own self: alone. After immersing and sometimes hurting yourself to the unknown, the mind will work – most intensively during sleep- to understand why chemical substances got released earlier in the day. It will create new connections and matter to be reflected upon. Later that week, month or day, when you mind gets time to roam around, you will be able to have a new perspective on the initial question. Could be under the shower, driving back from work, while taking a walk. I have found silence to be very much helpful for this kind of introspection.
I suppose this is why we randomly have this genuine idea for a project while peacefully taking a shit

I guess this highlights the necessity of : sleep, taking time for yourself during the day -with no distraction around, and giving some time to important project or decision.

Is there an order ?

I’d say yes and no.
It seems like main themes are more likely to arise at given stages along one’s life’s path. For example, awareness on one’s death might come in much later in life depending on people.
I think that these realizations over the course of our lives are interconnected with each other. One leading to another and so on. For instance, it seems strenuous to know where we are at in our life if we haven’t given any though to what is it we are pursuing. How can we possibly think and be critical as how we act and behave as parents without even having children ?
Timewise, it looks like those so called “philosophical” questions do not arise in a linear way, every XX months. Quite the opposite actually, it looks much more like exponential than anything else.
Because of this thematic interconnectedness between all the areas in our life, the person involved in this reflective cycle just gets more curious about other aspect of their soul and life.
Which is great because one could start questioning themself later in life and still thrive to get better knowledge or themself. Looks like there is no expiration age as to when to start. Although some questions might for some require a lifespan to get even a hint of answer.

An then what ?

Well some people will never act upon it, bury it and miserably keep walking through life. And because it’s all connected, if they don’t get out of their own way, they’ll never move forward.
Of course it is not that easy and most of the time it implies fighting it’s own demons. But as hard as it is to get started, I firmly believe it is a blessing in disguise.
I wonder if those people who never took the time to reflect on some of those questions and chose to ignore them; would they have if they lived for an extra 150 years ? Maybe. If they changed their environment.
The money example is a great one. I think we can all think of someone who lived or has been living life without ever questioning the meaning of it all.

Many more questions turn around in my head: is there a limited amount of queries in one human life ? Can you get to the bottom of them all ? If so, is that what core wisdom is ? Is there questions that do not have any answers ?
But just like anyone else I do not know shit and just assume things. And I need to give my mind some time for it to reflect on it.

This is were the power of reading comes to play. If we assume that as Homo sapiens, we are all going to encounter pretty similar topics across our life.
Therefore, it would be no surprise, if people 2000 years ago have come to think and ask themselves the very same questions we, humans in 2025, are asking ourselves. The same Topics such as; the purpose of life, the meaning of love and many other.
Why not writing down our perceptions of things to help other people on this journey ? I am starting to realize that this is what reading philosophy is all about; Shortcuts for reflexions in our life.

I believe those are themes we should hand in to young -and older- souls in schools. It hurts for me to say it but this field called Philosophy I used to swear over is probably the key to living a better life and thrive in different areas.

Cheers,