Framing the question

Yesterday there was a presentation for faculty and staff who might be interested in moving to Doha. A lot of it was question and answer time and, as always, I was struck by how wrong the questions were. People ask whether the students' English is a barrier to learning, when the interesting question is really one of transitioning students from an educational system that doesn't promote critical thinking or problem-solving. People ask about how women are treated in Qatar, when really women are not the subject of most discrimination or exploitation. They're just the wrong questions, because people don't yet have the experience to ask the right questions.

When I learned about the pre-Socratic philosophers in college, I felt immensely sorry for them. They were doomed to failure, because the questions they asked were inherently unanswerable due to the way they were framed (e.g., "How did the many derive from the one?"). On the other hand, those guys did give birth to philosophy and science, so maybe in the grand scheme of things they're not too ashamed of themselves.

Lately I've been spending a lot of time asking myself what career/field would make me happy. A friend suggests that this may be the wrong way of framing the question, but I don't think I've figured out what way of framing it would be more productive.

Too sleepy to tie my thoughts together....

If at the end of our journey
There is no final
Resting place
Then we need not fear
Losing our way.
-Ikkyu