“They seem more eager to know why than to learn why they allow another’s compulsive drinking to affect them so destructively.” (ODAT, 11 April)
Of all the questions, ‘why’ can be the most overrated in its utility, at least in as far as it concerns my life.
Two unhelpful whys:
The first: why does someone behave a certain way? The illusion is that, if I go upstream of the behaviour and turn off the tap, the behaviour will stop. It’s not as simple as that. Behind each ‘because’ is another ‘why’, and you never get to the tap, and if you get to the tap, you can’t turn it.
The other ‘why’ is the ‘why’ of why the world is the way it is, why certain events occur. Such whys usually reflect a non-acceptance of the state of affairs and a distraction from doing what I can to live with it or overcome it.
There are genuine psychological and theological questions at play in relation to these two ‘whys’, but these require systematic, detached examination, if they merit any examination at all, not neurotic fretting.