That’s because we’re a journeying species.
The design and innovation company Ideo is said to ask the question Why? five times of the thing it’s working on.
Why? (Sorry!)
Because here is not there.
There’s still further to go. And when we arrive there, it becomes here, and there is something in us which has to journey again.
Is Why? the most Human of all questions?
Some ask why we have to do things the way we also have. Others ask we we should change what we’ve always done. Some initiate journeys, but just about everyone embraces them. I don’t know of anyone who still uses their Smith Corona typewriter with carbon paper and Tipp-Ex to capture their art, and most people would feel it near impossible to give up their laptop; we love our Dysons and no-one takes carpets outside to beat them anymore.
To know something is one thing, to feel it deeply is to go further still, but to do it is to go even further. And once we’ve done it, we can see more, feel more, and do more. We are not there yet.
THIN|SILENCE 
Hi Geoffrey
I like this post a lot. It got me asking why?! Interesting that here plus a ‘t’ = there. Maybe ‘t’ = the time to get there, the time to transfer from here to there, (or should that be here!), Why is an important word, WHY NOT is even more important! WHAT IF? The Power of the Dream and all that, Yume No Chikara!
Just one observation though. It depends where we are in our journey, time and culture.
Sometimes I enjoy writing with a fountain pen rather than typing, WHY, because there is a certain satisfaction I get from doing it. Sometimes its quicker to use a brush and pan than go to the cupboard, get the vac out etc, (its more ecologically friendly too!). And with regard to time and culture there are in many countries like India/Africa places where beating the carpet is the norm! Will they ever get there (here)?
Thanks, Peter. I thought the same about there and here – so the little sign as “t” painted in front of “here,” but if you’re that close, it really is here. And we begin again from here to there.
I’m with you on the fountain pen thing – we need analogue and digital, but I wouldn’t go back to “publishing” on a typewriter and Gestetner – there’s that windy scene in the film ‘Love Actually’ with Colin Firth discovering the shortfalls of using a typewriter. Funny.
The interesting thing for Africa and India is probably more on the digital communication where the mobile phone is revolutionising life and business. The best sources I’ve found for the number of mobile phones in use are Peter Diamandis’s ‘Abundance’ and Ramez Naam’s ‘The Infinite Resource.’
I appreciate this is more a Western-orientated comment from me today, but even this is changing. One of the exciting things is how this movement from here to there is improving the choice people have. Someone in Africa might have the choice one day to have a solar-powered Dyson, or they might use the money to educate all their children. Choice is the thing.
Great thoughts from you. Thanks again.
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