thE aRt of QueStioN asKinG

im thinking it has to do with the fact that i field entirely too many questions in a days time, but whatever the reason, ive been speculating a lot lately on the topic of question asking. being the mother of a five year old, answering questions is a daily task of mine. im thinking joey is on the high end of the spectrum as far as the number of questions he poses in a days time, but i have no concrete data with which to compare. i did, however, decide to get a baseline idea of the number of inquiries he inquires of in a 24 hour period, so this morning i began counting as soon as his feet hit the floor, which is the exact moment the first question pops out of his mouth, i am not even kidding. however, 30 minutes into my data gathering, id already encountered 34 questions (again, im not kidding) and decided to end the technicalities of my research. conveniently, i am, as you all know, so fortunate to be partaking in a statistics class and used this accumulated knowlege to get a rough estimate of joey's average number of questions posed per day. so maybe statistics wasn't exactly the tool that i used to gauge this, but, humor me people. anyways, after some rough calculations, giving the child 12 hours for sleep and 5 hours for school, eating, and generally keeping his mouth silent (which realistically has really never been the case) i found that in the remaining 7 hours of joey's day, he may be likely to pose an average of 476 questions. you may be pondering how this indeed may be the case, but trust me, spend an hour with him, and you will see, its true. granted, many of the questions are mundane and silly (i.e. whats for dinner and then 5 minutes later, whats for dinner) there are some rather well thought out and inquisitive questions which he throws at me. don't get me wrong, i am thrilled with the fact that he is hungry for info, he should be, he's five! this is all very good, im just merely relaying how talented joey is at asking questions. anways, my speculations began as i started to think of adults and how most of us land on the exact opposite end of the spectrum as far as asking questions goes. let's face it, we mostly suck at this facet of friendship and relationship. i can carry on hours of convo, relaying facts and details about the most trivial aspects of my life yet can get off the phone without asking one question about the life of whomever i was blabbing their ear off. i dont think im wrong to conclude that we, as the adults of society, all have a tendency to be self-absorbed in relationships and to slack in asking the questions that need to be asked. at times it seems uncomfortable or inappropriate or prying yet i think each of us yearns for somebody to truly reach in and ask us those questions. i am personally grateful to have a few of those in my life who break this mold and pose the questions which lend themselves to genuine and loving relationship. and so, as im so good at doing, ive made some conclusions... we need to learn from the little people. perhaps not from the quantity of questions they pose, but from their inquisitive nature to know. we need to pursue others in hopes of knowing others and to ask about their lives, their hurts, their fears and their desires. this is relationship, and most of us aren't too great at it. there is a middle ground to be reached in the number of questions that children and adults pose. the little ones aren't gonna change, but we can. that so sounded like a sermon ending. can i get an amen? :)