Asking — and answering — life's interesting questions
I have several songs in my music collection that speak to me. There’s a dance performance that moves me every time I see it. And an essay from my favorite author helped form my beliefs as I was developing my own political identity.
It seems art can sometimes communicate directly with our soul. How does creative expression help us to know ourselves better?
Related questions: Why do we like what we like? What are the benefits of fiction? Why does music evoke emotion?
When I think back on my past, there have been times when I have been wrong. At the time, I thought I was right, sometimes quite fervently so. But then I got new data, or had new experiences, or heard a convincing argument, and so I changed my mind. My beliefs changed.
Related: Listen to an episode of the Intellectual Roundtable Podcast, where Lee and Michael discuss this question: ‘What beliefs do you have that might be wrong?’ We also discuss another question as well, ‘What makes a place feel like home?’
Logically, it seems likely that there is something that I believe right now that is wrong, although of course right now I think it is right. That’s true for all of us.
What beliefs do you have that might be wrong?
Related questions: What do you believe? What is necessary to change your mind? How do we know what we don’t know?
Understanding your own happiness is important. Knowing what has made you happy in the past can help you steer your life toward similar experiences in the future. Often, though, there is a disparity in what we think will make us happy and what actually does.
What puts the biggest smile on your face? What makes you the happiest?
Related questions: What makes you the unhappiest? Is happiness the most important purpose in life? Why do we put up with unhappiness? Why don’t we know what makes us happy?
Change is one of the constants in life. We go through radical change in our early years, as we physically and mentally mature. After that the changes tend to be more subtle, but can be equally as profound.
How have you changed in the last 20 years? In the last year? In the last week? How have you changed?
Related questions: How would you like to change? What is necessary to change your mind? How have we changed?