The Deepest Levels of “Why”

If you ever go through a Six Sigma program, they’ll teach you a number of tools and ideas to help streamline and optimize your company’s work, and one of those “tools” is The 5 Why’s. It’s a pretty simplistic idea that basically states you should keep asking the question “Why?” until you get to the root cause of the problem. I don’t know why they arbitrarily chose five, but I’m guessing their research found that asking five “Why?” questions probably sufficed for almost all practical matters.

You might be wondering why it’s even necessary to teach such a concept at all. After all, it’s pretty common sensical, right? Well, frankly, it’s not. At least, people deceive themselves (often unintentionally) into believing that they have reached the root of the Why. So yeah, it’s not a bad concept for Six Sigma to reinforce.

Additionally, finding the root of the Why is often found to answer multiple problems of the original issue. For example, if you’re a software company and notice that Application X isn’t performing properly, you might find that the problem is an issue with one of your servers. If you repair that server, you might find that in addition to Application X being fixed, now Application Y and Application Z are performing better. And vice versa, if you focus on a fix only to Application X without regarding the server issue, you might negatively impact Applications Y and Z.

So that got me thinking, what if we take this Five Why’s concept beyond just the fifth Why?

What if we stretched it out to infinity?

This is profound and critical to understanding the human experience in relation to our environment from the cosmological level to the local level. The problem that happens far too often is that we think we’ve really gotten to the root of an issue and focus on solving that, but there’s almost always an even deeper level issue influencing that one. Like a server affecting multiple applications, that deeper level issue influencing a wide gamut of human issues at higher levels.

(Sidebar: I didn’t choose this analogy for this purpose, but it’s interesting how humanity is juxtaposed to computers in this manner. Almost gives credence to the ideas behind simulation theory, right? *wink*)

If you started reading this from LinkedIn, I posed the question of why many top level business leaders reference philosophical and religious texts as their primary book recommendations when asked that question. I think it’s because they’ve been clued into this idea and understand that it’s a better use of their time to focus on those foundations that impact issues closer to the surface. Not that modern business books are bad, but they’re often pretty one note and can frequently be summarized in a few cliff notes.

So the next question is, why don’t we go to those deeper levels of Why?

We already noted that it’s partly out of ignorance, but I think the bigger barrier is that it can literally destroy your life. Or, better stated, going to those deeper levels of Why will disrupt your life as it stands today.

Let’s get concrete with this using my own life as an example. I grew up in the evangelical Christian community, and as you’re probably aware, Christian churches employ pastors and clergy just like other companies employ regular workers, salaries and all. The evangelical community holds to some pretty specific theology, and they’ve fooled themselves into believing that they’re truly open to those deeper levels by stating, “We’re willing to debate certain ‘open hand’ issues… so long as we don’t touch things in our ‘closed hand.’” Those “closed hand” issues include things like…

• Salvation of sins through the death of Jesus on the cross
• Human beings are created in the imago dei, the image of God
• The Bible is the authority for all moral and human issues

If you question these ‘closed hand’ things, most Christians will instantly label you a heretic. They’re not at all willing to entertain ideas of what happens to the Christian faith if we can empirically prove that any of these are incorrect. And the truth of the matter is that if that happened, the church would die and many people would be out of a job. Literally. It’s not that different from you being laid off from your regular, non-church job. And most pastors are talent-less hacks, so they’ll fight to keep their church jobs since they could never find a better job.

But it’s not just pastors who this affects. Even for the average person, asking the question, “What if this isn’t true?” can be mind-numbingly depressing, regardless of your worldview. Having lived a life in the church for almost 30 years and just now asking myself these questions, it sometimes makes me think, “Well… what the heck has my life been about? Where do I go from here? Should I just put a paper bag over my head and lie on the floor?” (That’s a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy reference, in case you missed that.)

Now, at the time I write this post, I’ve found comfort in asking these questions. As irrational as it may sound, I have not abandoned the basic tenets of the Christian faith, although my views might be expanded in light of some Buddhist and Hindu readings I’ve been studying lately. I have tested my faith and not found it lacking. Rather, I’ve never felt more alive. That’s a wholly different set of posts, but my point is that although these questions might disrupt life as you know it today, I’m hopeful that there’s always light and a new life waiting for you at the end of the Why tunnel.

Phew.

Now THAT was a heavy post!

Still, I see this as one of the most important posts I’ve ever written. It’s really a summary of my life and how I see my life continuing to move forward in the future. If you’ve ever wondered how I’ve ever been inspired to write anything I write about, it’s because I always take this Why question process as far as I can possibly take it. It’s often a murky path, but it’s always been rewarding.

Let’s wrap it there. See you in the next post.