Why?

Rules to read: *Take a shot everytime you read the word why*

For a girl who was an absolute terror to her high school English teacher, it baffles me to think about how much I enjoy writing now. Although she will probably never read this, I want to mention that teacher, Ms. Holt. Because I genuinely think she had one of the most fundamental impacts on the way I think about things in my life, and she probably never realised it in the moment.

For context, the reason I called myself a terror was because I was, indeed, exactly that. I would roll my eyes when we had to find symbolism in texts or films, avoid reading class material wherever possible, and don't even get me started on the lengths I would go to so I wouldn't have to write a practice essay. The poor woman genuinely had to think of special prompts just to get me to write SOMETHING.

On one particular day, by some miracle, I wrote and handed in a persuasive essay. If I'm going to be honest I don't truly remember what the essay was about, although, I know myself enough to know that I handed in, in Tahlia fashion, the absolute bare minimum. Somewhere within the essay I had made a statement. I had taken a position on something and obviously assumed the statement itself was sufficient evidence that I had thought about it.

Ms. Holt read one of my paragraphs and asked, "Why?"

"Why what?" I said.

"Why do you think that?" she repeated, pointing to one of the statements I had made.

So I explained myself.

Then she asked, "Why do you think that?"

And at this point I'm thinking, is this woman serious right now? I literally just told you why. But once again, I went a little deeper and explained where that reasoning had come from.

You'll never ever in a million years guess what she said next…

"Why?"

What she was asking me to do was explain my point further, and then once I had explained that, she wanted me to explain my explanation. Anyway, this sounds confusing because it was. We went back and forth probably five times and each time I thought I had finally answered her question, she would ask me to go one level deeper. Why did I think that? Where did the idea come from? Why did that matter to me? What assumption was I making underneath the opinion? Why did I have that assumption in the first place? Eventually you get to a point where the thing you originally said stops being the interesting part.

So, it's like if I said to you now, "I think some forms of modern feminism have become strangely judgemental of women who choose more traditional lives."

Why?

Because if the goal was to give women more freedom over what their lives look like, then surely choosing to prioritise marriage, motherhood, family, or more traditional roles should be just as legitimate as choosing a completely career-focused life for example.

Why do I care whether those choices are respected?

Because I don't think freedom means everybody making the same supposedly empowered choice. I think freedom means being able to make the choice that actually aligns with your own values, even if that choice happens to look traditional.

Why do I value that?

Probably because I don't see complete independence as the highest possible good. I think there is value in relying on other people and being relied upon, building a family, belonging to a community, and accepting that sometimes a meaningful life involves responsibility and sacrifice rather than complete individual autonomy.

And why do I believe that?

Probably because of the way I was raised, the importance I place on family, culture and community, and because somewhere underneath my original opinion about feminism is a much bigger belief that a good life is not necessarily the one where you need nobody.

And suddenly we are a VERY long way from "I disagree with modern feminism." And the thing is, you could just keep going.

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What she and I never knew in that interaction was how much it would change my outlook on life, and not just in academic life, but real life. By some miracle it became my reflex when regulating my own emotions, when trying to understand someone else's point of view, when I make a judgement, and especially when learning something new. I wish I could say it happened because I immediately recognised the wisdom in what she was teaching me and went home a changed woman, but I was probably just annoyed she kept asking me questions and then went back to avoiding my English homework. Eventually though, it stuck.

If I'm angry, I try to work out what actually sits underneath it. Sometimes somebody genuinely did something wrong, and sometimes the reaction says more about an insecurity, assumption or expectation I brought into the situation myself. I think the lesson was simply not to stop at the first explanation. The first one is often the easiest: the thing you've heard before, the thing everyone around you believes, or the thing that conveniently confirms what you already wanted to think. Sometimes I end up believing the exact same thing, but for a reason I hadn't consciously articulated before. Sometimes I realise the argument was sitting on top of a value I don't actually agree with, and sometimes I change my mind completely. That doesn't mean everything has one perfect explanation if you interrogate it hard enough. People are messy, circumstances matter, and sometimes there genuinely isn't one satisfying answer.

I think one of the worst things you can do is become so attached to being the person who believes something that changing your mind starts to feel like losing. Which probably explains why, years later, I now voluntarily write things nobody has asked me to write. Over the last year especially, I've found myself writing constantly. Sometimes it's about politics or economics, sometimes a random TikTok sends me down a rabbit hole and suddenly I have 1,500 words sitting in my notes app at midnight. There is absolutely no coherent subject tying it all together. The thing tying it together is probably just the question.

Why?

Why do we do that? Why do I think that? Why does nobody talk about this? Why does everybody believe that? Why did this happen? Why does it matter?

So I suppose that is what this page is.

It is probably going to be random. I've realised writing is one of the ways I work out what I actually think. Sometimes I'll write about something I know reasonably well and sometimes it will be me learning in real time. I will definitely have opinions, hopefully change some of them, and there will almost certainly be occasions where I write far too much about something that could have remained a passing thought. Apparently I don't really know how to have those. The more I learn, the more aware I become of how much I don't know, but I like following a thought far enough to see where it goes. Maybe something I write makes you think differently, maybe you completely disagree, or maybe you read three paragraphs, think "Tahlia needs to get a grip," and carry on with your day.

All acceptable outcomes.

So that's what this is, me sharing my process of asking why something happened and getting answers I don't like or do like. Most of all, because why not? This page is dedicated to anyone who cares, it's my form of expression, and it's me learning. Extremely bold of me, but we move. And in the effort of trying to make my texts as perfectly imperfect as possible, these posts will be all my own words (aka, not re/written or polished by AI).