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I love “How Firm a Foundation.”

It’s a song that takes a hard time and sorrow and lifts that up and brings happiness and joy and action.

I don’t know if I have an answer to this one.

There are some questions that seem much more important than other questions. And I think the most important questions change on the person and the time and the place.

Some questions change belief. Some questions change actions. Some questions don’t change anything.

There is a Wikipedia page dedicated to the common phrase that there are no stupid questions.

Asking questions can be a confession to our own ignorance. And we don’t’ want to admit we don’t know something.

But it’s okay if you don’t know something. It’s okay to ask a question even if everyone else around you knows the answer and you think that you should know it to.

But there are lots of things you don’t know. And it’s so much easier to just asks.

You know when you forget someone’s name even though you actually know them really well? Sometimes it’s okay to just apologize and ask.

Have you started a new task and someone explains it to you as if it’s the easiest thing in the world, and you have no idea what they are talking about? It’s okay to ask for clarification.

Do you ever struggle with things that everything else takes for granted? It’s okay to ask for help in your own journey.

When I was younger, I didn’t ask a lot of questions because I wanted to already know things more than I wanted to admit my own ignorance. But as I got older, I realized that asking questions was actually sign of intelligence, not of stupidity.

So ask away.

But in answer to my question, yes, there are many stupid questions. Questions asked in the pursuit of knowledge are not stupid; questions asked in the pursuit of humor and laziness can be stupid. And sometimes it’s just the wrong time and place to ask certain questions.

I recently watched this video:

One conclusion is that chairs do not exist, which comes about due to some jumping through arguments about metaphysics and language.

But here is my thought: the concept of chair is useful. We all know what it means and have an understanding of it. Because of that usefulness and common understanding, chairs exist.

We might not be able to come up with a solid definition of what a chair is. We might be completely unsure what is “real” and what are the qualifications for something to “exist.” Thinking about it too much might lead to some interesting paradoxes and questions.

Yet at the end of the day, the philosophizing ends and we go and and sit on our chairs and we know what a chair is.

So is the pursuit of questioning the existence of things actually useful for something? Or is it just for fun?

Sometimes I want to do more good in the world and serve and help others more. But sometimes I am just lazy. I have good ideas of what to do, but then I fail to follow through. It will take me weeks to write a letter or go visit someone.

Service takes work. To really help someone, you don’t get to just swoop in and make a huge different really quickly. There needs to be times of learning and growing and observing.

It’s sort of like when you are using a paint sprayer: it is really satisfying to spray paint and have it instantly and beautifully paint something. But in order for that to work, you have to spend so much time taping things off and protecting other things. You have to identify and prepare what actually needs to be painted instead of just spraying everything.

And making a difference requires a lot of prep work. It requires learning and growing and figuring out what other people need.

I took the GRE today. I got 164 on quantitative and 166 on verbal. (The highest you can get on each is a 170.)

I studied for quite a while for it, including taking two practice tests. The first practice test in July I got a 164q/160v. The second practice test at the beginning of September I got a 166q/167v. So I did better on one of my practice tests than I did on the actual exam. I was sort of nervous today.

And I ran out of time on one of the quantitative sections. I’m pretty sure I could have gotten all the questions right if I had 10 more minutes, but I had to guess, including typing a random number into a box that was most definitely not right.

I don’t love taking tests. My hands were freezing and my armpits were sweaty, as they usually are when I get nervous. But I just realized that I actually like taking tests when they don’t actually matter–it can be a fun way to learn and work through problems.

I had a dream before I took the test that I went to the testing center and they only had paper copies of the test, and when I went to complete the test, it was already written on, and so I had to get a new copy. That was written on too, so I had to get a third copy of the test. It obviously didn’t go so well.

So what is a good GRE score? It depends on the university you want to get into. Basically, anything around a 160 and above is quite a good score.

But if you took the time to study and did your best, then you got a good score just because you tried.

I find myself going along with the conversation sometimes, even when I don’t actually agree with things that are being said. I come home and complain about something that happened instead of bringing it up when I’m there. I find myself agreeing with opinions without really thinking about it. I apologize when I don’t need to, as if my presence is an inconvenience.

I don’t always know how to defend what I value, who I am, and what I believe in sometimes. I’m not confrontational, and I do try to blend in and go along with whatever is happening.

But sometimes I need to be a bit more brave. Instead of answering the questions, I need to challenge what questions are being asked. Instead of pretending to agree with someone’s point of view, I need to say that I disagree. Instead of floating down in the direction that someone else is pushing me on, I need to realize where I’m at, and get heading towards a better way.

I do not need to apologize for being, for thinking, for believing. I do not ever need to assume that who I am and what I believe needs to be hidden so that I do not offend someone else. I can be who I am, stand strong, and calmly let the world know where I stand.