The Itch to Know

Yet another inner struggle I often wrestle with is the choice between settling into life’s given narrative and resting there… or surrendering to an unrelenting thirst to question, to seek, to know more.

Sometimes, I even feel a quiet envy toward those who have made peace with the story handed to them—those who are content, perhaps even joyful, in accepting it without need for further inquiry. They believe, wholeheartedly. They rest. They live without that persistent itch. I, however, live on the other side. My company is the restless, the ones whose hearts are stirred by a constant nudge toward “more.” Not necessarily more possessions or accomplishments, but more truth, more depth, more understanding.

I know my way unsettles some people. They can’t understand why I cannot simply accept, why I am unwilling to stop searching. But for me, it is not a choice—it is an undeniable pull of the soul. To cease questioning would be to cease breathing. And so I search. I seek. And though my seeking often leaves me with more questions than answers, there is a strange satisfaction in that. It is as if the very act of searching feeds a part of me that answers never could.

I have no illusions about reaching final conclusions on the great questions—how we came to be, why we are here, or what happens beyond death. Those may forever remain beyond my grasp. Yet, the journey toward them seems to awaken something vital in me. Perhaps the questions themselves are the compass my soul needs to travel this life.

Maybe they were planted in me—by society, by religion, by loss, by the early presence of death. Or maybe they have been carried forward from other lives unfinished. I cannot know. I do not need to know. What I do know is that I cannot be content without the search. My longing is not for the final answer, but for the unfolding that happens along the way.

It reminds me of math class, where the teacher insisted: “Show your work.” The value wasn’t in the answer at the bottom of the page—it was in the process that led you there. My mother says the same about life: it’s not about the day you’re born or the day you die—it’s about the dash in between. The dash is the search. And though my mind often imagines I’m hunting for answers, my soul knows that truth is not something to be told—it is something to be lived.

The path is rarely straight. Sometimes it’s a pathless path, yet it is a path nonetheless. And along the way, even when clarity doesn’t arrive in the form of a final conclusion, it still leaves me with a deeper sense of understanding, and perhaps, a bit of wisdom.

Part of why I write is for my sons. I did not have these conversations with my own father—he left far too soon—and so I leave them here, for my boys to carry with them whether I am here or not. I hope my words spark questions in them. I do not want them to believe simply because I said so. I want them to learn to listen to the voice within—the God within—and to trust it above the noise of conditioning, opinion, and memory.

For the mind craves facts, dates, maps, and destinations. But the soul? The soul longs for meaning, for purpose, for the deep wisdom that comes not from arriving somewhere, but from walking the road with eyes and heart open.

Perhaps “Seek and thou shalt find” was never about an object or a final truth at all. Perhaps what we find is not a thing, but a way of being—a kind of seeing—that turns no-thing into everything.