Question the status quo.

WHEN I was a small boy, my father –who only died last December– once told me to question everything. And being an inquisitive young lad, I invariably asked “why?”, right after he told me. He just answered that someone named “Christian Murty” had once famously said it. So a few weeks ago, I looked this bloke up. And it turns out it wasn’t someone called “Christian Murty”, but rather “Jiddu Krishnamurti”:

You have to question everything that man has accepted as valuable, as necessary. –Jiddu Krishnamurti

One of my first ‘clever’ questions that I asked my parents was “how many atoms are in a teapot?”. Luckily for me, my mum was studying a degree in physics so she could provide me with a fairly accurate answer. I’m pretty sure most parents would have said ‘lots’.

I think being curious and asking questions about the world is a fundamental trait of all good scientists. I think that’s probably what started me on the path to science, because it tends to give the most accurate answers. Except that Krishnamurti wasn’t just talking about questioning how the world works, but rather questioning the status quo. Scientists question how the world works. Philosophers and revolutionaries question the status quo.

So pretty soon, I started questioning everyday things I’d notice like:

• “why do so many people wear blue jeans?”¹.
• “why do people wear ties?”².
• “why do people drive cars?”³.
• “why do people drink alcohol?”⁴.

…they are afraid that by observing and questioning everything, by experimenting and making mistakes you may find out something for yourself and break away from the authority of your parents, of society, of tradition. –Jiddu Krishnamurti

This may seem like rather an odd thing to write about, but the essence of questioning everything has made me who I am today. It is the fundamental reason for this website. It is an attempt to question why we do things the way we do. Could we be doing things a different way? A new way. A better way? Yes, I’m going to continue asking questions like an incessant five year old, and probably stirring up a lot of shit in the process. I believe that by questioning what we do, how we do it and ultimately why we do it, the answers can make this a better world (and increase our chances of long-term survival).

Nowadays I ask the following sorts of questions:

• “What is the goal of humanity?”
• “Do we want to still be around in 500 or 1,000 years’ time?”
• “Does consumerism really make people happier?”
• “Why do we still measure the prosperity of a nation by it’s Gross Domestic Product instead of its Gross National Happiness?”
• “Where do the raw materials of consumer electronics come from?”
• “If we want to to be more sustainable, shouldn’t we be looking more at indigenous cultures?”
• “Why should citizens who have not voted for a current political party be forced to pay income tax?”

1. I finally bought my first pair of blue jeans at age 37. And now my family asks me why.
2. I then made a personal promise to myself never to wear a tie
3. Unlike most teenagers, I decided to continue ride a bicycle instead of learning to drive a vehicle. That decision would later haunt me.
4. I was 28 before I had ever drunk an alcoholic beverage