Interesting conversation yesterday in Manhattan with one of the leading biomed researchers globally, the kind of person who mentors young Nobel prize winners, asking him about the role of metaphor in the design of experiments.

It was an easy query to field for him, saying that it’s the new metaphors used to shape experimental design, often migrated from other disciplines and therefore out of the box, that sparks the breakthroughs in basic and translation sciences that are now breathtaking, and not many years from market.

This was posted yesterday at Akron U’s Student Union. I like the curious implications of approach, using theater as a platform for one of the plagues of any generation … maybe psychodrama about irrational numbers.

My nephew is home from a military stint in Kosevo. I asked him how many military guys support American action in Iraq.

It’s a curious picture: none of his sons-of-soccer-moms buddies support what we’re doing there, and at the same time, many definitely look forward to going.

Why is that? I queried. Because if you go, you’re eligible to get hired by contractors there and make “tons of money.”

Cool dude …

I was walking up to the library at the end of our street last night and a woman in the park approached me with “a question”, which in this park is usually a euphemism for a lively pandering encounter. “Hey, do you know anything about bugs?”, she queried. I admitted to knowing some, but far less than any respectable entomologist.

“What’s your question?”, I asked, realizing quickly I had slipped into channeling a reference librarian from my youth. “You know these bugs all over now - are they mosquitoes?” I asked if they’re biting and apparently some do and some don’t. This is May Fly season here, more annoyance than bite. She seemed relieved and followed me into the library, nabbing the first librarian for “books on bugs.” In this online age where anyone can wear sheep’s clothing of expertise, one is wise to seek the second opinion.

In a workshop yesterday, one of the insights people resonated most with is the realization that so much of our life is shaped by the quality of questions we ask ourselves. Zen has a long tradition of enlightment by koan - questions designed to help students break through to new levels of understanding the nature of things.

Some of our questions constrain us while others liberate us. Some evoke moments of gratitude; others evoke moments of ineptitude. Some keep us perfectly stuck; others get us imperfectly moving. When we want questions that empower us, we need to first decide what we want our questions to do for us. Then we can decide what kinds of questions will create this kind of impact.

How smart do we need to be in order to be peaceful and joyful in our life? How much do we need to know in order to enjoy the present? How much “tuned in” do we need to be to feel like we belong, that we know our place in the universe? How many square feet of house does it take to love the seasons? How many friends do we need to have a heart as spacious as the sky? How many plans does it take to do what we love?

We keep ourselves stuck with how and why questions. How am I to live? How am I to get people to love me the way I want them to? How am I do get where I want to go in my career? Why am I where I am? Why do people in my world act and think the way they do?

Joseph Campbell’s spin: I don’t believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive. Looking for the meaning of life is looking for the how and why. Being alive is about saying yes to what makes us feel most alive. The answer to how and why is yes.

What makes you feel alive?

My father says that almost the whole world is asleep. Everybody you know, everybody you see, everybody you talk to. He says that only a few people are awake and they live in a state of constant, total amazement. / Meg Ryan to Tom Hanks in Joe vs. The Volcano

I am continuously amazed at our tendency to associate intelligence with knowledge more than curiosity. When I coach execs and teams who are stuck, their cup is full of knowledge with little room for much new. In every case, they get unstuck with new questions. If educational institutions today reinvented themselves, possibly people could only “graduate” when they could demonstrate as many questions as they have answers.

Then we can take the next step and consider a good leader, doctor, teacher, nurse, architect, accountant, or engineer as one whose capacity for inquiry is as sharp as their capacity for memory.