A Rumination on Convivial Questions
written down Sunday 3x21

I love the idea that a Question can take me/us/you far afield, less a matter of finding an Answer than opening an opportunity to explore connections and spawn further curiosities. We have such different takes on the past and present of what's worthwhile and interesting, what inspires a response or opens the door to an expression of wonderment. One never knows from which stimulus a conversational turn will next arise, or whither it will lead.

One of my greatest joys is presenting an image or an artifact and saying, in effect: what do you make of this? What do you see here, and how do you read it? The results are so varied—because people draw upon their own unique storehouses of imagery and understanding, and often "see" things differently than I do, thus enlarging my experience and understanding.

This is a sort of play for me, a pleasure rooted in engagement, and in the recognition that there are stories everywhere. And humans adore to hear and tell stories, to express interpretations of things seen and heard and remembered, to fit together the pieces of a puzzle, to unpack enigmas. Every thing (and of course some things are non-material—memories, for example) around us has a story, contributes a thread to an ever-weaving emergent personal macramé of intertwinglement.

...and, just in a nick of time, along comes Creatures of the dawn: How radioactivity unlocked deep time from the BBC...