Why are the Dutch taller than other Europeans? It's genetics, but what precipitated that?
I'd pepper my mother with question after question, and even after she'd give an answer, I'd always end with another "Why?" Amused but exasperated, she finally responded; "You need to read books." And so I did.
What would happen if we hadn't killed all of the Passenger Pigeons? Estimated to number more than 5 billion at the time that Europeans discovered America, by the 1820s, a single flock flying overhead consisted of over 2 billion birds.
There were so many of them that they blackened the entire sky, and their droppings ruined many a farmers crops. By 1914 the last one named "Martha" (after President George Washington's wife) died. From 5 billion to none. I'd ask myself what would things look like if they hadn't been hunted into extinction?
Can you picture the sight of 2 billion Passenger Pigeons turning day into night over New York City? Imagine the droppings falling from the sky like rain and piling up in the streets like so much unwanted snow! There's be a 'Code Red' warning for everyone too stay indoors for several days until the massive, undulating swarm passed overhead.
The health implications of the massive heaps of bird droppings needing to be cleaned up would be absolutely astonishing.
What If We Were All...
I'd wonder about the different races for instance, and if Adam and Eve were the same race, how in the world did we end up with the racial differences we have today. When I was 10, I'd ask myself what things would be like if everyone was say, Asian?
So at the snap of the fingers, we all wake up in the morning transformed. No Whites, Blacks, Latinos, or indigenous peoples anymore, we're all Han with no memory of our former selves, that would solve everything, right? No more divisions based on race.
I recall asking an adult that back then, and she asked me "Asian from which country and/or tribal group?" So that added a whole new wrinkle to it when she posited that even if we were all say Han Chinese, we'd eventually splinter into Northern vs Southern Han; Upper vs Lower Han, and the same old divisions would surface over time and we'd be right back where we are today.
It's true that everything's broken down into different subgroups no matter which populations you're talking about.
I recall learning in my German History class when I lived in Germany, about a tribe called the Swabians from the south of the country and the rich culture they brought to the nation of my beloved Germany today (I love Germany and the German people and always will!).
I remember when I first learned that the Basque people of Spain (they would say they are NEAR Spain, but I digress), have the highest percentage of Rh negative blood found anywhere in the world when I visited that country. That brought forth yet another why?
What in the world causes something like that? Something special about the Basque country? Something in the food?, the water? Questions such as these ignited my innate sense of curiosity about the amazing world that we live in.
So I did take my mothers advice and ended up finding the answers to some of the questions that bedeviled me, but which also led to new ones that needed answering. Thus, I've led a life of interesting research that has made me richer as a person and more understanding of the things that make each and every one of us unique as a human being.
I'll never lose that spark that drives me to keep questioning and learning in this walk through life. But if I ever do, you can bet I'll wonder "Why?"
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