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, of security, of knowing where we stand. But Thomas 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. It’s not just about society at large. 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 collective self-deception because stepping out of that pale light would mean confronting things I’d rather leave undisturbed.

So, I started asking myself the questions that this quote demands—questions that, if taken seriously, will not leave me 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 that my actions flow from something deep and real, that the good I do is not performative, not a desperate attempt to be seen as virtuous. But how much of my goodness is carefully curated, designed to be visible, affirmed, or rewarded?

Do I really love others, or do I just use relationships for my own security and validation?
Love, in its purest form, is about giving. It’s about seeing another person 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 an underlying hunger for validation?
Do I seek connection for the sake of love, or do I seek it to confirm that I am lovable?
Real love is costly. It requires risk. It demands presence, not performance. And if I truly love others, then it shouldn’t be contingent 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 really know who I am?
It’s easy to present a version of myself that feels acceptable. I know what parts of me people admire—what traits make me seem competent, kind, wise. Am I crafting an image, a controlled version of myself? And how would I know if I weren’t?

If I could determine whether that was true—and if I were to stop performing, stop managing perception—what would be left? Would I be truly known by anyone? Would I even know myself?

It’s sobering to consider that I might have spent so much time constructing an identity that I’ve never actually stepped into the fullness of who I really am.

Do I desire to be certain about what’s true more than actually knowing truth?
Certainty feels safe. Truth, on the other hand, is often disruptive. It’s uncomfortable, even painful. Do I really want to know the truth, or do I just want to be reassured that what I already believe is correct?
Truth, if it is real, will sometimes demand that I change. That I let go of old assumptions. That I admit I was wrong. And if I refuse to entertain that possibility, then I don’t actually love truth—I just love the illusion of certainty.

Do I allow my own comfort to dictate my values?
I want to believe that I live by my values. That I hold to what is good, true, and right. But do I? Or do I only live out my values when it’s convenient?
It’s easy to believe in justice when it costs me nothing. It’s easy to preach kindness when I don’t have to sacrifice. It’s easy to say I stand for something when that stance doesn’t require risk.
But if my values only hold up when they are comfortable, are they really values at all?

Do I deceive myself into thinking I live out my values because it would be too uncomfortable to actually live them out?
This is where the pale light of self-deception glows the brightest.

It’s the quiet comfort of thinking that believing in something is the same as becoming it. That admiring justice means I am just. That valuing courage makes me brave. There’s a certain glow that comes from feeling aligned with what is good—but sometimes that glow only mimics the real thing.
And when that happens, the illusion doesn’t look like a lie. It looks like light.

The truth is, I don’t always live out what I claim to believe. Sometimes, as Merton would say, I dignify my laziness by calling it despair.

It’s a way of excusing inaction. Instead of naming my resistance for what it is—fear, avoidance, fatigue—I label it as something more noble-sounding. Despair feels deeper, more sympathetic. But sometimes what I call despair is really just a reluctance to do the uncomfortable work of living out what I say I value.

And if I don’t confront that fact, I risk becoming someone who is content with the idea of integrity, rather than someone who actually walks in it.

I feel conflicted about even sharing these thoughts—because part of me wonders if this is just another attempt to be seen a certain way. To look like someone who asks the hard questions. To come off as deep, or self-aware, or brave.

That possibility unsettles me.

I’ve just come out of a season where I believed the answer was silence. That I shouldn’t share these reflections at all. I hoped restraint would prove I wasn’t chasing validation. But then, even that started to feel performative—holding back in order to feel pure. Withholding something true and potentially helpful, not out of humility, but to reassure myself of my own motives.

And lately I’ve been thinking about the impulse behind that kind of restraint. That deep desire to know if my actions are coming from a sincere place—or if I’m just feeding some hidden need for affirmation. There’s a part of me that wants to strip everything down to the bare minimum, just to see what remains.
Trying to surrender the desire for approval, or to prove anything outwardly—but to know, honestly, if what I believe still holds when there’s nothing left to gain.

I don’t think self-denial is an ultimate answer. It can become its own kind of performance. But I understand the longing now—the longing that may lead monks, mystics, hermits, or spiritual seekers to take vows of silence and solitude, to strip life down to its barest form in search of something unshakably real.

Still, I’m sharing this.

Not because I’ve untangled all my motives.
Not because I’m sure this isn’t performative.
But because I believe the questions are worth asking anyway.

Maybe the goal isn’t to escape the possibility of ego altogether. Maybe it’s to keep asking the questions that ego avoids. To keep stepping into the light—even if it shows more of me than I’d like.

And to trust that somewhere in that tension, something real can grow.