I love collecting beautiful questions. It’s a bit of a hobby, like picking sea shells by the beach. It’s less about the shell and more about the act of being at the beach and picking. And occasionally I chance upon a shiny one that came at the right time, right place. They always say, when the student is ready, the teacher appears. In this case, questions, words, thoughts put out by others, by no intention of their’s, become a shiny, insightful provocation to the boiling ocean of thoughts in my head. 

@daniellucas asked just that kind of question recently, in his post: 

But what if that doesn’t matter? Why try to quantify every single thing, to turn every moment into a data point, every smile a plus one on some list in some database in your mind, on a computer, in the cloud, on your bookshelf.

What if life is meant to be lived with zero comparison? Where then do you find solace, purpose, discomfort, comfort, conviviality? In this moment?

Or this moment?

And I commented:

“What if life is meant to be lived with zero comparison?” - a beautiful question! wow so much to unpack and reflect from this one line, and realising that your whole post was helping to unpack it. Thanks for the thought-provoking inspiration!

Yes, yes, yes. So…what if life is meant to be lived with zero comparison?

A beautiful question seems to have this virulent quality of making me only ask more questions: Does it mean we stop comparing, measuring, judging altogether? Is that even possible, knowing our monkey mind? Or are there good or wholesome forms of comparison, versus bad/unwholesome forms of it? If so, what would good and bad comparison look like? Or is it okay to compare, but more about not being overly-attached to the comparison, or beat yourself up over it, or read too much into things? Is it like, “OK, my performance took a dip this year compared to last year. What can I do next?” No hard feelings, no guilt, no remorse. Just plain acknowledging, accepting, embracing, and then pivoting towards what I can do to get better, without ego, without burden, just stoically working, trying, exerting to learn and grow more, with a peace and unhurriedness that scares even Buddha (being dramatic here)? At the end of it all, isn’t that just plain witnessing, good ol’ mindfulness and being present to the good and bad, and just say “Is that so?” and going ahead to do what needs to be done?

I don’t know. 

A beautiful questions does just that. A knowing that I don’t know, that I need to know more, yet knowing fully well that that knowing will disappear at the drop of the next beautiful question…