65. Questions matter | with Kate Inglis

Tankespjärn with Helena Roth

Season three, round three of meandering conversations means we’re at the midway point, and somehow it always catches me by surprise.

As always, me and Kate meander quite significantly, and if you’ve been counting Kate-rants, there’s a couple in this episode too. Her rants don’t really feel like rants to me though, they are more musings that are allowed to meander and take form. Like her sharing the story of celebrating Canada Day on July 1st, prompting her to the following question:

‘What is the notion of a nation? What's it for? What is this container’s purpose?
In my vision, it's a container that helps us test ideas about how best to live.’ ~ Kate

Questions matter.
They carry weight. Can have a huge impact. On individuals, groups, countries and even on a global scale.
We speak about this.

About the time I was told by a teacher that I was not allowed to ask the question #WhySchool, because, in her view, schools are inevitable. Me questioning what she deemed inevitable, obviously shook her quite significantly. Not surprisingly, I disagreed with her. Schools aren’t inevitable, they are a human construct. Learning though, is inevitable. It comes with the territory of being human (which is a way to narrow framing as well. Does it comes with being alive? All animals learn as well, don’t they? Do plants? Fungi? Microbes?).

About how just asking someone to tell you more about a belief of theirs can be met with the same response as the teacher I encountered.

How we are demonizing answers to certain questions, for sure, but even worse–and this scares me–we’re demonizing the asking of the question in the first place. And that’s not a road I want us–culturally, together–to venture further down on.

‘How can I share what I know, what I see, what I experience, what I fear, what I'm concerned about in such a way that you can have a better chance at receiving it?’ ~ Helena

Which brings us to the ability to have sticky conversations. Those that are preferably had in person, face-to-face, in the flesh. The one’s where I am not even sure that I know my own stance, and thus perhaps shy away from even more. Even though what’s needed, from where I stand, is more of them. About what’s important to me, to us. How we are to live together. What we do when there’s strife and angst and disagreement and perhaps even aggression.

Sticky!
And important.

Join me and Kate as we meander past a number of sticky topics, with curiosity, openness, and quite a bit of playfulness thrown in too. I think that helps, especially when encountering a hard-to-swallow piece of tankespjärn or two.
Links:
Kate Inglis is most easily found through her website
Canada day
Follow Pop the cat on Instagram, sleeping atop my knitting
The Tragically Hip and Ahead by a century, featuring Gord Downie
#skolvåren (i.e. ‘school spring’)
Rage becomes her: The power of women’s anger by Soraya Chemaly
Notes for the everlost by Kate Inglis
Jocko Willink author of the book Extreme Ownership and host of the Jocko podcast