"Do not, folk to come
folk still to grow up
rashly make a boat
recklessly a bow either!
...
'tis not in a fellow's skill
even in a strong one's power."

-- Vainamoinen, Kalevala

Without anything like this in mind, they spoke unto me saying: "Why? I thought I understood" (hereafter referred to as the "statement"). Said statement was not entirely true. To be clear, the statement was never: "I thought. I understood."; or, "I thought [deeply about the topic, and then] I understood." No. It was not the application of thought towards the production of understanding, but the uncritical presumption that understanding simply existed, irrespective of the absence of research and analysis. Or, restated: it was never that understanding simply existed, but that this prejudicial "Why?" was situated atop the presumption of the existence of a complex substructure of historically perfect assessments.

Here however, because of the manner in which events unfolded, it was impossible to continue ignoring the non-existence of bonafide understanding, and it is in the story of how this non-existence was dealt with that we observe the pattern of unconscious-presumption-cum-unreal-categorization that yielded the statement. For the object that could not be ignored thus required classification and integration into the statement's complex -- and lest we forget: historically perfect -- substructure.

At the initial moment of inquiry, the statement quite healthily embodied dissonance become utterance, however this dissonance moved no further outwards, and was not tested by the lights of external criteria, as the subsequent utterance was completely unconnected to the question in question with respect to content (while remaining fully compatible with the question in question's unreality). Unhealthily then, in place of natural exploration, unreality was forcibly redirected inwards, thus hardening the discord between (external) reality and (internal) representation into a most brutal internal category. Here was a category whose neural effigy was developed not to reflect universal conditions as best as humanly possible, but instead to buttress self-worth(lessness) inasmuch as the subject's brute animality commanded it.

What should we say would be the impolite course? "Don't talk like that ... What good would that do? ... But you can't resign. You can't give up your whole life ... don't go." Well? Resign? Don't? Which is it? My "whole life" is it? So fallow I pray that life is not! By what reality other than brutal self-deception could such an internally contradictory line of questioning be considered coherent? -- and yet, in the eyes of my real life subject, still be considered as indicative of superlative comprehension!

Speaking more generally, when we are forced into a corner by discordant experiences and categories, shall we study our predicament by facing and testing our representations against reality, "head on" so to speak, or is the better course to elaborate our precious corner by way of whitewashing, wainscotting, and the construction of built-in glass shelving littered with remote controls?

It must be understood that basic rights are to be accepted and defended at all times, and so by all means we must permit discussion of all ends. My point however is this: never -- "Never, never, forever never" -- should such a defence cater to immature failsafes installed to safeguard distorted representations and forcibly sustain unsustainable relationships.

We are creatures of habit with incredible technical prowess and equally marvelous self-worth issues, all packaged within an open system of beautiful incompleteness. Therein lies part of what is to be understood: reality prescribes incessant mystery, pain, and hysteria only so long as we choose to ignore it.

Let us not so recklessly demand "Why?", and we may come to understand.