This post is brought to you by Bubble Bobble for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). When programmers run out of ideas (and inside jokes) for levels, they can always use that itself for inspiration.

Remember when growing up you were told that there were no dumb questions?

At some point we stop asking. We stop because to admit that you don’t already know makes you look ignorant and stupid. Even if we don’t care what other people think, we stop because the people we ask treat us like we’re dumb.

I propose again, as we learned when we were still in Kindergarten, there are no dumb questions. If you are really trying to learn, you have to find out somehow. We can read and read and read (Wikipedia), but books and online articles are incapable of human thinking. We sometimes need someone to give us a point of view, rearrange our thinking, and make things make sense. Maybe we just need to hear that we are on the right track. Or perhaps we need to hear that we’re not even asking the right questions. And yes, *everyone* misses the obvious at some point in their life. That includes you.

I have always thought, since I thought to wonder about it, that life is a big learning experience. Why else would we be born knowing nothing but basic instinct with an infinite capability to learn? Why if that was not what we were meant to do?

I wonder if when you ask someone and they give you a snarky response, it’s due to their own issues with their own quest for knowledge. “Well, no one would tell me, so why should I hep you?”. People often take their own insecurities out on others. So, if they have answers and don’t want to share, it’s because no one would help them. Maybe they like having the knowledge and power and it feels better to keep it to themselves. If they don’t have answers, they don’t want to admit it and show their own short comings. So they will answer with a huff, and a puff, and a ‘I don’t know, but hell if I’m going to tell you that!”

So, we’re conditioned to not ask. In being conditioned not to ask, we don’t find answers. Not asking these dumb questions breeds ignorance.

If someone is brave enough to ask me, I hope that I am always brave enough to answer honestly and openly. I hope I will always admit when I don’t know and give information even when I don’t feel like giving up my secrets or taking the time to explain. I’ve always tried to be there and do this for my younger siblings. As the world is fast teaching them about dumb questions, I counter that with an offer: “You can always ask me.”