That annoying question.

"Why do you ask questions to which you already know the answer?"

It's probably a line we've all heard at least once. And if you've watched X-Men, then you've heard it at least twice. But I think a lot of the time it's not that we know the answer - it's that we've already got our answer, and we want someone else to tell us we're right. So we're not always conflicted.

Because we love it when we're right. And we hate it when we're wrong, but we can deal with it, learn from it. But when we don't know, when we're conflicted... that's when it's annoying, when it's difficult. When you're hoping against hope that you're right, or that you're wrong, and dreading to take that first step, just in case it's not what you thought it was...

Some people will never take that step, because they live in fear of the possibilities. I've certainly done it before; I'm a victim of my own hyper-active imagination. You give me any situation, I can give you a hundred variants of it where it turns out ugly at best.

I can remember one situation in particular where I was going to speak to someone, and one such variant was them strapping me down to a table and hooking me up to a polygraph, or pumping me with truth serum until I blabbed about what I was very much trying to cover up.

As you can see, my variants often border on to the fantastical. Needless to say, that particular meeting was uneventful.

But that, unfortunately, never makes it any easier for the next time a decision must be made. And apathy and ignorance are two very easy bedfellows...

Some thoughts to meditate on.