{"id":137990637,"date":"2025-11-21T11:02:21","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T17:02:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/?p=137990637"},"modified":"2025-11-21T11:02:21","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T17:02:21","slug":"rabbit-holes-and-the-incessant-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/rabbit-holes-and-the-incessant-why\/","title":{"rendered":"Rabbit Holes and the Incessant “Why?”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every parent knows the endless “why?” of a curious child. And everyone who’s ever used a search engine has been sucked down the rabbit hole, themselves, beginning with a simple “why?” Ever spend hours following intriguing links and breadcrumbs, only to realize you never did get the answer to your original question–or, if you did, you got so many different answers that they were all meaningless, and you were left just as clueless as when you started? <\/p>\n

The Writer’s Digest November PAD prompt, today<\/a>, was to write a “why blank” poem. As with yesterday’s prompt, I have one serious and one smart-ass poetic response. That was the intention, but now I’m not sure which is which. Perhaps both are really quite serious, after all.<\/p>\n

Why?<\/h2>\n
\r\nWhy ask \u201cwhy?\u201d when every question\u2019s met\r\nwith punditry from tyros and tyrants? \r\nVast libraries lie within your grasp,\r\nand graze your curious fingertips\r\nto yank you down, down, down\r\na winding maze, the dusty stacks \r\nwhere knowledge lives until you realize\r\n(hours later) that you have always had the answers\r\nto all the questions\u2014save one. You still\r\ndon\u2019t know the answer to the question: \u201cWhy?\u201d\r\n<\/pre>\n
Why Blank?<\/h2>\n
\r\n\"Why blank?\" the teacher asked, \r\nconfused. The boy replied, \"You said \r\nwe ought to write an essay, \r\nwhat we thought\r\nof summers off, or flying kites, \r\nor looking deep \r\ninto the eyes that stare at us\r\nfrom our reflection in the mirror.\"\r\nThe teacher nodded. \"And?\"\r\nShe held the pristine sheet\r\nof paper to the light.\r\nThe child sighed. \"I've never known\r\na summer off, the grass grows faster\r\nthan I do, and there are weeds to pull.\r\nNor have I ever flown a kite--\r\nthough some have told me\r\nthat I ought to do, I don't know how.\r\nAnd there is no one looking back\r\nbut me, outside the window pane\r\nor from the mirrored glass\r\nabove the sink. His silence\r\ntells a lonely tale, and even I--\r\nwho longs to have a friend--\r\ngrow bored. You see? My mind\r\nis dull, just like\r\nthe other teacher said--\r\nuninteresting. And that,\" \r\nthe sad-faced child said, \r\n\"is why it's blank.\"<\/pre>\n
\n
Sometimes you start out writing one thing and it veers off into unexpected territory. Don’t judge – just go with it and see which rabbit hole it leads to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Where will they lead us, this time?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":137990638,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_has_post_settings":[],"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,7],"tags":[2730,2725,2752],"hashtags":[],"class_list":["post-137990637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry","category-writing","tag-poem","tag-poetry","tag-prompt"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-27 23:29:00","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137990637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137990637"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137990637\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":137990640,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137990637\/revisions\/137990640"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137990638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137990637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137990637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137990637"},{"taxonomy":"hashtags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtags?post=137990637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}