263. Always Questioning

What she wants most is to understand herself. She’s always thinking through her experiences, always questioning herself and everything that happens to her. She wants to see what is true in her and what is false. She wants to know why she does one thing instead of another. She wants to comprehend the whole reality of the person that she is.

Sometimes she thinks about these things too much. When she’s aware of this happening, she forces herself to stop. Her deepest questions have to remain unanswered, and this bothers her. Her own self seems to belie explanation, as if it were somehow beyond her possible understanding. She doesn’t know if things will ever become clearer, but she continues to look everywhere for answers.

She doesn’t trust her own desires, because she doesn’t know where they come from. She trusts her fears even less, for they often seem to get in the way of what she needs to do. She has endless doubts about most things, and not just things in her, but those out in the world too. She wishes there were something solid to support her, some dry ground she could stand on, instead of constantly flailing about in the sea of doubt.

But her wish has gone unfulfilled. She has been forced to rely on her own resolve instead. For she refuses to allow her doubts to restrain her fully. She refuses simply because she gets so frustrated with it all that she forces herself to take action.

The source of this decision to act is a mystery. It seems to come from nowhere at all, yet it must originate in her. She doesn’t understand how each particular choice is made. If it’s something about her that causes it, then why is she the person she is and not someone better? Why is she not more courageous, more grateful, more caring than she is? Why doesn’t she live normally instead of questioning every last thing?

Of course, she has no answers. She only knows she has to be what she is. There is simply no choice about that. She cannot abandon her questions any more than she can abandon herself.