Nerdlets: Questions

I love asking questions. And I've also realized asking questions is a privilege. This week, I share some of my favorite questions to ask - and I hope it'll get you started asking hard questions too!

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Joy Bork 0:02

Welcome to Here We Are. The podcast where we talk about all of the beautiful flavors of nerd possible in whatever ways are available at the current moment. I'm your curiosity curator, Joy Bork. I have been thinking a lot recently about questions. Like the simple act of asking a question or what it means to ask a question. Or how a question can drastically shift meaning based on how it's phrased. How a question can be an accusation or an invitation, an equalizer, or a distancer. Questions hold an immense amount of power. And they have the potential to change the immediate future. They are truly magical. And they can be destructive. It's all in how they are wielded. So let's start this conversation off on a light note, the icebreaker questions. The level one, get to know you because I know nothing about you questions. In some ways, these are the hardest for me to come up with. I'm starting from scratch. I know nothing about you. What can I determine I have in common with you from a glance. I so often put so much pressure on getting these initial questions right that I would rather just not ask anything and disappear into a wall. So to cope with that. I have practiced questions in my head ahead of time, just to try to minimize this anxiety. Let's bring it back to the basics. The person I'm with is also human. They breathe air. They live. They have a story. We are probably more alike than I imagine at first glance. So how can I craft a question to bridge that initial gap from a human that I'm just sharing space and air with, to a human that I'm getting to know. One of the theories I've come up with is finding things that are so commonplace that basically everyone has an opinion on them. And it's usually a polar opinion. Like pickles. People love them or they hate them. For most of my life, I have not enjoyed pickles. This came from the standard childhood mental perception of pickles being an icky thing. Kind of like onions. Or sour cream, which has sour in the name. So why else wouldn't I think it was icky? For real though. So pickles. I had my elementary school bestie, Emma, over to play one day and mom suggested that I offer her a snack. When we looked at the pantry, Emma requested pickles. Being the good friend that I am. I grabbed the jar of unopened pickles and used my strength and fortitude to unseat the lid. And as is normal in these situations, my strength worked to get it open, but then I didn't diminish the strength and I spilled pickle juice everywhere. Including all over myself. I smelled like pickles the rest of the day, which is not my favorite, but this is what I will do for friendship. And this only cemented my lack of tolerance for the brined cukes leaving me with a greater hatred for even the smell of them. So, naturally, this became a perfect ice breaker question. I had a polarized opinion on it, and generally, like I said, most people either love or hate pickles. And so my theory began. Being the social scientist fledgling that I am, I ran experiments. Beta tested my theory. And wouldn't, you know, it. Basically everyone has an opinion on pickles. All I had to do was say, "do you like pickles?" And conversations, flowed forth? I noticed that this question either allied me with the other human or their disbelief flared up into energetic responses and boom! We were off to the races. Conversation started. We were engaged. There was no going back, we've begun to battle about pickles. So then I realized I needed a second question. Some topics I found to be fascinating were like asking people's questions on recycling. Or inquiring if they'd ever had a near death experience. Why I found these to work is beyond me. But somehow they got me in. And once we got past the first two questions, conversation usually took off in an organic direction. If things didn't, don't worry. I had a question in the hopper that was sure to get me out of this situation. I would just casually ask, "what do you think about the dwindling population of lawn gnomes in our society?" and immediately, the mood would change. The person I was talking with would usually ask me to repeat my question, and then look at me like I was utterly insane. And boom, I was free. This process worked well up through college, mostly because after college I felt like I had to be more adult, which. I did sometimes. As I've gotten older and sifted through my life story in counseling and alongside wise friends, I've realized that the ability to ask questions, to question what's happening or to question someone's intent, is a privilege. An easy way to maintain power is to eliminate the ability for someone to question anything. To just expect blind trust and immediate obedience. And I've happened upon a lot of this in my lifetime. And it has kept me small. And when I say small, I mean that I lacked the agency in that moment to stand up for myself. To listen to what my insides were telling me, which was often that what was happening in front of me wasn't kind. Or wasn't equal, or I was being taken advantage of, or someone else was getting hurt. But I didn't feel that I could ask those questions. So I just went along with it. As you can imagine, that led to a lot of hurt and resentment that I held onto and I'm still holding onto and dealing with years later. And oddly enough, the path to healing from this is being able to once again ask questions. Like "Who benefited from me being unable to respond?" "What did I believe would happen to me if I stood up for myself?" Was how I was treated in line with and supporting the goodness of who I am?" Ooh. These questions are hard to ask. Because they often lead to a perspective shift. For me, it has been. Flipping I deserved what happened. to, I actually didn't deserve what happened. I took the blame for something that isn't mine to own. Or the opposite, I've had an opportunity to make amends and own up to how I hurt somebody else. I had the ability to lead a discussion table at a local recovery group a few years back. And I saw firsthand the power of being able to take back one's agency through asking questions. Through being able to sift through trauma and see another perspective. To be appropriately responsible for one's own actions and hold others accountable for theirs. Relationships are two way streets. In that experience, I found that I came back to a few questions over and over again. And I would love to share them with you. My new favorite introduction question icebreaker is "what do you want people to know about you?" This gives the person I'm with the ability to curate their first impression to me. It could be what they wish people knew about them that isn't obviously apparent. Like say they may present as strong and confident. But inside, they're really just a softy who wants to snuggle with an adorable puppy. Or it gives them the opportunity to tell me about who they are, not what they do because so often we lead off in these conversations with the what, rather than the who. A question I love throwing out there when I'm leading teams or calling shows is asking, "what are you proud of yourself for today?" Which often throws people for a loop. We are told from a young age not to talk about ourselves. To be humble. But yet each day we all are facing challenges. Some are big, some are small and unnoticeable. Yet the practice of affirming ourselves for doing hard things is crucial for growth. I am so good at forgetting the good things that happen to me. So this question is also a practice for me in realizing that I'm stronger than I think. I am creative. I can figure out how to move through hard moments and I'm going to be okay. I also love figuring out what others see. We each walk into situations and places with different lenses on. So walking into a grocery store or a museum or walking around outside. I love asking "what is your eye drawn to?" For me, I'm drawn to patterns. To how things are arranged. I look for the logic behind why things are placed where they are. For how things work together. And I'm fully aware that not everyone is like me in this. So then it becomes a fascinating journey into acknowledging and celebrating the beauty in how we each experience the world. Recently I learned of a game called Where Should We Begin? By therapist Esther Perell. It is full of questions of varying depths that have led to so many fascinating conversations lately. I just have to tell you about it. I just picked out two random questions from the deck. Are you ready for this? The first one is "I'm irrational when it comes to..." Ooh. That's a hard one. And the second one is "if I wrote a book, its title would be..." Like what? Questions like this lead to the sharing of normal human moments. The building of closeness through continual curiosity toward another. There is always something new to learn about those you are in relationship with. So my challenge to you this week. Ask a question you wouldn't normally ask. Dive deeper in curiosity towards another, ask yourself what you're proud of that you've accomplished. Take time to notice and celebrate how we each experience the world. And don't forget. Curiosity wins. And the world needs more nerds. Bye.