Let’s compare some punctuation, shall we? We have:
- The Period. The period claims a whole lot. Sometimes the claims are valid, other times, not so much. For me, the period tries to carry authority that it simply does not always have.
- The Exclamation Point! The exclamation point is silly. It’s pretty much only appropriate on Instagram.
- The Question Mark? The question mark is an unappreciated treasure. A question mark is how we start an introduction; questions are how we figure out what to have for dinner; questions make work dilemmas into challenges that need to be solved.
In my world, everything starts with a question. The love affair with questions started young with me. I was the kid who couldn’t help (but also secretly enjoyed) stumping my Sunday school teachers. I was the student who would ask teachers all the questions—because in my head—their job was literally to answer them. Throughout my life, I recognized that with each question I grew in wealth—wealth in knowledge, power, curiosity, and I literally felt the space I occupied grow a teensy bit with every bit of new information.
Baby Questioner works on the high school newspaper. Shoutout to the teachers who celebrate the questioners.
When I was growing up, people said I was “bien preguntona,” which translates to a girl who asks a lot of questions. And I embraced the title. I let it define my career trajectory. I let my love of questions challenge and improve relationships, and let it dissolve others.
Questions have been one of the true constants of my life. I appreciate questions for the thought processes they trigger in my brain. I love how a well-facilitated question in a group setting can strengthen relationships and cultivate a culture of collaboration. With training, I’ve learned that not all questions are alike and to ask good questions requires attention, foresight, and good listening skills.
This website aims to explore all sorts of questions—the hard ones, the sensitive ones, the repetitive ones, the new ones, the funny ones. I hope to raise interesting questions in the world of politics, work, home, personal, and pop culture. Sounds like I want to question everything, doesn’t it? Well, I do. I’ve learned that I’m not just a preguntona or a questioner at school or at work. Questions follow me everywhere. They follow us everywhere.
And yet, it seems to me that critical thinking is turning into a bit of a lost art these days and all of these questions are floating around us unexamined, swerving in out and out of purview totally unchallenged. Some people approach questions with a sense of hostility, which is unfortunate because questions are how we get to space of agreement and understanding. It’s where everything starts. These are few places where I start:
- Do you hate Michael Bay movies? Of course you do. They are garbage… but WHY does it feel like your brain got immersed in bleach when you’re exposed to his movies?
- Not sure if repealing the Affordable Care Act will have any impact on your life? Are you under the age of 26 and under your parents’ insurance? Are you a woman and like to be able to determine if and when to have a child? Do you or someone in your family have a pre-existing condition? The answers to some of these questions will determine if less coverage could have any implication on you. (sneak peak: YES!)
- Isn’t it interesting (read: fucking annoying) how Best Actress Academy award nominations are for characters that portray single moms, drug addicts, or other women dealing with major trauma or struggles…. Whereas the Best Actor Academy award nominations are for like the Goddamn stuttering King of England? (still kind of bitter about King’s Speech…)
- Why is it so hard to ask for a raise? Like why!?! Why is it so awkward?
- Why do so many work meetings drag on and feel unproductive?
- How am I going to make it through the next four years sane and still meaningfully contribute to the resistance?
These are just a few questions I have on a Friday night after one glass of wine. There are questions everywhere, but it’s up to us to figure them out and try to understand why they stump us. If we don’t try to answer these questions, we might have the King’s Speech 2 and that’s just unacceptable. Or worse, we won’t learn a thing about electing President Cheeto.
So, thanks for following along to this website, and asking all the questions with me.