This is by far the most difficult post of the A-to-Z challenge, not just because it is 'Q', the least used letter in English, the death knell for Scrabble players, but I felt I was getting stale. Everything that came to mind seemed to be just rehashing stuff I've written about before. Writing had become Quotidian. My mind was a Quagmire. I was in a Quandary, I felt a Queasy Qualm. Perhaps I was suffering Quarantine fever!
Marie Rebelle's post on 'Never blog for someone else' resonated with me about bloggers' block and had me thinking of Quitting the Challenge. I took Easter Monday off from writing and spent it reading again and got re-inspired.
So as I Quaffed down a mug of strong coffee to Quench my thirst, I turned to my Little Oxford Dictionary; just 4.5 pages of 'Q' words. Being an 'A' to 'Z' challenge, perhaps a Quire (+1 or 2) of Quarto paper was needed? As a sex blogger, I was tempted by Quivering, Quavering and Quakes! Quiff gave me a chuckle thinking of pubic hair. What is the Quintessence of my blog? Some ideas that crossed my mind were Quixotic; what was my Quarry? I don't want to resort to a Quirky Quip, and I don't want to seem Querulous or Quibbling about my Quest. So much Questioning.
Image by Christian Dorn from Pixabay
What's this? A Quickening? The answer to my Question is staring me in the face, Question!
Questioning, that most human trait, the key to keeping conversation and communication going. I am reminded of the joke "Why do psychiatrists always answer a question with a question?" - the answer "Why not?" - that certainly keeps the conversation flowing. In the business world, the Change Management and Business Analysis specialties have a key mantra, the "Five Whys" (Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?) to help drill down to find the most basic underlying problems. Sounds like any toddler, doesn't it. But it's not a new phenomenon - it goes back at least 2 thousand years to ancient Persia where they had the "Three Whys Men".
The key to good personal and sexual relationships is communication. The way to grow, to expand your experience, to explore, is to ask questions. In the broadest sense, there is the question of consent. It's not just "Would you like some rumpy pumpy tonight?", but questions like "Would you like a neck or back massage?" convey so much more. Questions like "Do you like that there?" and "Can you rub me here?" provide guidance, even learning new things.
In my "Mindfulness" post, I wrote of being an 'observer' of life, but questioning is a critical adjunct to understand what you are observing and to guide you into new observations and insights.
(For the dictionary averse, hover your mouse over any 'Q' word for a definition)
Click to see who else is taking the challenge.
I always find X to be the most challenging, but that's mostly because I insist on having a word that *begins* with the letter X.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your Q vocabulations.
You're doing great -- just about 2/3rds through!