Why?

It’s only human beings who ask why. Animals can’t. It’s because we don’t have a niche – a biological one.

I thought we were supposed to be tropical animals.

Sure. We evolved near the equator.

If we lived in the tropics, we wouldn’t ask questions. We’d just luxuriate.

What if we were eaten by tigers?

Is that what happens in the tropics?

 

I think we ask why for everything else in the universe, for all the mute things –

The gulls are hardly mute. They’re loud.

– For the animals and the trees and the plants …

Why do they need us to ask for them? They’re happy as they are.

 

I’m not sure organisational managers ask questions.

That’s because organisational managers think they have answers.

So real questions don’t have answers?

Sure – they’re just a why. And a why is … a cry. A demand. You cry up to the heavens, and who hears? Who answers? No one. And that’s what makes a why a why.