Dimension of Questioning

Recently, part of me was thinking about the project, while another part was trying not to think at all. I simply couldn’t focus. I tried watching films and visiting galleries. But within a minute, my mind would wander back to the same thought: how can I solve this project? I was deeply stuck. Everything I did made me feel guilty, because I kept blaming myself.

Now, everything—the presentation, the project—is finished. Well, technically, my thinking hasn’t stopped, so perhaps it’s not entirely finished. But the blur in my mind has begun to settle. Fragments of ideas are now starting to form connections. In hindsight, I believe this phase was necessary. I needed this time to reorient the direction of my entire project. From the beginning, whimsical thoughts attacked me, confusing what I actually wanted.

Before I entered this programme, I believed I had a clear sense of taste. I even told my friends that this was one of the merits of getting older—that the older I became, the wiser I would be. But each time I read someone else’s essay, I realised how little I knew—about design, about life, even about my own natural inclinations.

I don’t know me.

Of course I didn’t. I’d never taken the time to truly think about what I was chasing. Like a hunting dog focused only on the hare, I was simply running after something I liked—without knowing why I liked it.

I now believe that asking questions of oneself is absolutely critical. If you begin thinking about happiness and seek the conditions for it, you must first ask yourself: What does happiness mean to me? You need to lay a solid foundation stone before you start building—whether upwards or sideways. But I didn’t. I didn’t even realise that this should be the first question.

Foucault once said, “Truth is already power.” And so I believe that questioning—or doubting—the truth is the vehicle through which power is acquired as a designer. Designers have no inherent authority. They cannot survive without an audience willing to listen to their voice. Without a listener, the echo scatters into nothingness. If truth is power, as Foucault claims, then perhaps the only vehicle through which designers can approach authority is the question itself.

I failed to understand how vital questioning is. I couldn’t even claim authority over myself.

Thinking is a monologue. A soliloquy in question form. We don’t think to reaffirm an answer we already know. We think to find an answer we don’t yet have.
And frankly, asking the right question is not easy. It requires preparation. It requires understanding. Without that, it’s like shooting a bent arrow: no matter how hard I shoot it, it will always fly into the forest—lost.

I still don’t know how to ask questions through my design.
But I’m trying—starting from me.
I’ve just begun the process of inquiry into myself.