Questions I'm Afraid to Ask

Questions I’m Afraid to Ask

“One of the moral diseases we communicate to one another in society comes from huddling together in the pale light of an insufficient answer to a question we are afraid to ask.”
—Thomas Merton

There’s a peculiar comfort in certainty, even when it’s built on shaky ground. It gives us a sense of belonging. Security. A feeling of knowing where we stand.

But Merton’s words cut through that illusion like a scalpel.

The image is unsettling. Huddled together. Clinging to a dim and inadequate light. Afraid to ask the questions that would bring real illumination.

This isn’t about “society.”

It’s about me.

About the places in my own life where I’ve settled for easy answers instead of hard truth. About the ways I participate in a quiet, collective self-deception. Because stepping out of that pale light would mean confronting things I’d rather leave undisturbed.

So I’ve started asking the questions this quote demands. The kind that don’t leave you the same.

Do I do good in order to prove to myself and others that I am good? Or because the good I do is a fruit of a transformed goodness in me?

This question is like an axe at the root of my motivations. I want to believe my actions flow from something deep and real. That the good I do isn’t performative. Not a desperate attempt to be seen as virtuous.

But how much of my goodness is carefully curated? Designed to be visible. Affirmed. Rewarded.

Do I really love others? Or do I just use relationships for my own security and validation?

Love, when it’s real, is about giving. It’s about seeing someone clearly. Valuing them for who they are. Not for how they make me feel.

But how often do I enter relationships—friendships, family, even my work—not with a posture of self-giving, but with a quiet hunger to be validated?

Do I seek connection for the sake of love? Or to confirm that I am lovable?

Real love costs something. It requires risk. It asks for presence, not performance.
If I really love people, it shouldn’t depend on how they respond to me.

Do I let people see who I really am? Or just who I want them to think I am?
Do I even know who I am?

It’s easy to present an acceptable version of myself. I know which traits people admire. I know how to come across as competent, kind, thoughtful.

Am I crafting an image? A controlled version of myself?
And how would I even know if I weren’t?

If I stopped managing perception, what would be left?
Would I be known by anyone?
Would I even recognize myself?

There’s a sobering thought here. That maybe I’ve spent so much time building a self that I’ve never actually lived in it.

Do I desire to be certain about what’s true more than I desire to actually know truth?

Certainty feels safe.
Truth doesn’t.

Truth is disruptive. It stirs the ground. It unsettles.

Do I want the truth? Or do I just want to be reassured that what I already believe is correct?

Because if truth is real, it will eventually ask me to change. To release something. To admit I was wrong.

If I can’t tolerate that, then maybe I don’t love truth.
Maybe I just love the feeling of being sure.

Do I allow my own comfort to dictate my values?

I want to believe I live by conviction. That I hold to what’s good and true and right.
But do I really?

Or do I only live my values when it’s easy?

It’s easy to believe in justice when it doesn’t cost me anything.
Easy to preach kindness when I’m not tired.
Easy to say I value compassion when no one has hurt me recently.

But if my values collapse when they get uncomfortable, they were never values. Just ideas I liked.

Do I deceive myself into thinking I live out my values because the truth would be too uncomfortable?

This is the glow Merton was talking about. The pale light. The quiet ease of believing that admiring something is the same as becoming it.

That thinking justice is beautiful makes me just.
That saying courage matters makes me brave.

There’s a glow that comes from aligning ourselves with what is good. But sometimes that glow is a cheap copy.

And when that happens, the illusion doesn’t look like a lie.
It looks like light.

The truth is, I don’t always live what I say I believe.
And sometimes, like Merton said, I dignify my laziness by calling it despair.

That’s one way to excuse inaction.

Instead of naming it as fear or avoidance or fatigue, I give it a better-sounding name.
Despair feels noble. Heavy. Complex.
But sometimes it’s just my way of dodging what’s hard.

And if I don’t confront that, I risk becoming someone who loves the idea of integrity more than integrity itself.

Even writing this makes me feel exposed.
There’s a part of me that wonders if this is just another performance.
Another way to look like the kind of person who asks hard questions.
Someone brave. Someone deep.

That possibility lingers.

I went through a season where I thought the answer was silence.
Maybe if I said nothing, it would prove I wasn’t chasing validation.
But that silence started to feel like another kind of pose.
Holding back in order to feel clean.
Keeping something true and maybe even helpful tucked away—not out of humility, but to make sure I liked how I looked.

Lately I’ve been sitting with that.
The urge to know if anything I do comes from a sincere place, or if it’s all a hidden plea for affirmation.

There’s a part of me that wants to tear it all down. To live with nothing extra. Just the bare minimum.
To strip it all back until only what’s real remains.

Not to prove anything. Not to impress anyone. Just to see if what I believe still stands when there’s nothing to gain.

I don’t think self-denial is the answer. It can become another kind of theater.

But I understand the impulse.

I understand why mystics, monks, and wanderers leave it all behind.
Why some take vows of silence or simplicity.
Why people go looking for a kind of life that cannot be faked.

Still, I’m sharing this.

Not because I’ve figured myself out.
Not because I know my motives are clean.

But because the questions still matter. Even when they rattle me.
Even when they open more than they close.

Maybe the point isn’t to escape ego.
Maybe it’s to keep asking the questions ego runs from.
To step out of the pale light, even if the real light stings.

And maybe something honest can grow there.