Why?

Since the beginning of history, human beings have questioned everything: His own identity, what society is, even his place in the society he has come to perceive. Some have done this questioning process by using the well-known 5N1K profile: What, where, when, why, how and who? Well, what would your reaction be if I told you that this profile is based on a complete lie?

For things that are tangible, visible or comprehensible with any sense organ, this profile is perfectly adequate. For example, a meal in front of you:

1- What? Food.

2- Where? Kitchen or a restaurant.

3- When? Let's assume it's dinner.

4- Why? You are hungry or there is a situation that requires that food to come.

5- How? The way you like it cooked.

6- Who? The cook and you.

Most of the questions have been answered already, why? Because we started with concrete data. But is life based only on concrete data? Are our actions, words, looks and thoughts concrete? Does everyone perceive the same way? This is where the issue starts and stays.

There is no profile that we can use to take life out of the concrete and perceive it as it is. This difficult and short (really very short) journey called life consists only of causes and effects. When people try to understand the cause of what happens to them, they get drowned and lost in the many consequences. But can we understand those causes no matter how hard we try? That thing called cause, what a thing it is... Just when you think you have reached the cause of an effect, you realize something: The cause you have arrived at is also an effect. This time you embark on another adventure as if you had never set out. In pursuit of that cause, you start throwing away your youth, your life, everything. And when you have exhausted everything, you find yourself alone with the exhaustion of not getting the answer you want.

Now, these words of mine may sound confusing, and you may even think that they are written to “clear your head” in today's parlance. Let me explain this to you through an example:

Plato once said that human beings are “social animals”. Even if you go to the mountains and become a hermit, even if you act like a lone wolf and isolate yourself, you are obliged to come together with people. This is where the real situation begins. This is where we see the causes and consequences the most. Let's look at our example: You have a friend and you sincerely believe that no harm will come to you from that friend. You spend years, your whole life together and you know that no matter what happens, he will be there for you. You trust him enough to say, “One day I will have thousands of daggers in my back, thousands of scars on my back, but not one of them will come from you”. Until that day comes... That day comes and you receive such a blow from a place you never expected, at a moment you never expected, that your ship, which has been sailing on its course without any accidents until then, starts sinking instantly. You can't even perceive what has happened; the next thing you know, the water is rising higher and higher and it is impossible to get out. On the first day, you try to live as if nothing had happened, “What the hell,” you say, and carry on. When you wake up the next day, the reality of the event hits you. You say, “What the hell? Did that really happen?” At that moment, you have entered a vortex from which you will never get out. Welcome! I hope you have enough energy, because if the audience is in place, here we go.

Let's go through the profile you've been told you need to use to get to the bottom of things:

1- What? What, what?

2- Where? Does it matter?

3- When? The incident probably happened yesterday, but we don't know when the foundation was laid.

4- Why? Why? Why? WHY, WHY, WHY?

5- How? (Not “how did he do it” here.) How could he do it?

6- Who? Him.

We have asked our questions, so what do we have? Whatever state we were in before we asked the questions, we may even be in a deeper state now. Well, let's examine it in the context of those causes and effects I told you about:

1- Why? Because he could and he did.

2- Why? Did I do something?

3- Why? He didn't do it, someone forced him to do it.

4- Why? HOW did he do this to me?

5- Why? Did what we went through make me deserve this?

6- Why? What was my sin here?

7- Why? Why? WHY? WHY?

The answers to our questions are in that person. Well, if the person we say would never do that to us has hurt us with that painful act, will his answers take us out of this pit of “why”? And will we be able to continue living as long as we remain in this pit of why? Will this series of questions leave us alone even if we decide to move on without a care in the world? Don't we have more important questions than reasons? When Shakespeare says, “To be or not to be, that is the whole point,” don't you think he is asking the question why? If to be, why? Why not to be? Perhaps if we live without looking for meaning, if we let ourselves go with the flow and let life be a self-perpetuating sequence, will we care much about the whys?

All the works of writers and poets in the history of the world have been written about results; the most beautiful paintings have been made because of results. Did they create masterpieces out of results because they did not bother about causes? Or were they nourished by other results they found in their search for causes? Perhaps these works are before us because they themselves, even on their deathbeds, were trying to understand that first cause. Because that reality, which I have not mentioned from the very beginning of this article, but which everyone can guess, describes the search for all causes and the effects of the results. What is it? Human nature. The human nature is so complex, so meaningless that the effort to understand it will lead us into another whirlpool of causes.

Now a question for you from me: Why did I write this article? Because I could. It's as simple as that. When you realize that searching for meaning will lead you nowhere, think of this. The answer is always that simple. Why? Because it could happen and it happened. He could do it and he did it. You could read and you read. Everything within the framework of impossibility is experienced in the second it is possible. If he can betray, he betrays. You ask questions if you can ask questions, and every answer you get makes you run if it can make you run after new questions. So I will end with a sentence I heard from a very wise person:

“You shouldn't make too much of it.”