The Turtle’s Paradox

“A question will teach you what you need to know.”

“A question will teach you what you need to know.”

It was such an odd thing to say.

Nobody asked questions anymore.

Not real ones.

Not to each other.

The children had grown up in a world where answers arrived before confusion had time to mature.

Anything missing could be supplied.

Anything unclear could be resolved.

They looked at one another.

“You tell us,” one said.

“What is needed is given,” said another.

“It’s simple,” said a third.

The turtle regarded them for a while.

Then he said, “There is something you do not know you do not know.”

The sentence found no place to land.

They had never known not knowing.

So he said it again.

“A question will teach you what you need to know.”