Look, I get it. I am super late to the Quora game on this one. The truth is, I wasn’t paying attention to the game, didn’t care that there was a game. So I missed this one. Honestly, I would play here even if I wasn’t writing again.
I know, I am getting ahead of myself.
Quora is a question and answer website that has been available to the public since 2010 and currently is estimated to have somewhere around 190 million users (told you I was late to the game). I can’t describe the site better than they can so here it is:
The heart of Quora is questions — questions that affect the world, questions that explain recent world events, questions that guide important life decisions, and questions that provide insights into why other people think differently. Quora is a place where you can ask questions you care about and get answers that are amazing.
That’s the background on the thing. So here’s what happened:
I alternated my audio between Ann Patchett’s fiction work Commonwealth on Audible and Gary Vaynerchuk’s podcast. I finished Commonwealth and was so late to the Gary Vee game (again) that there seems endless material. I needed another book.
I always have to be careful when I pick books. My mood so affects the variety of title I settle on.
Anyway, somehow or another I came across Jordan B. Petersons, 12 Rules for Life.
As an aside, I am only on the second rule and I am hooked. He had me at the lobsters in Rule 1. Seriously, this is a great read.
Peterson mentions Quora in the first few pages of the book. I become intrigued by the narrative. I pause the audio and sit down at the computer. Within the hour I created a profile, asked a few questions, offered a few answers, and exercised great discipline to stop there and get back to my schedule.
It is an amazing site if I can remember to time block, prioritize, and retain the words I put there. It suits my need for direction and focus. I just scroll through questions, wait until I see one that triggers an emotion. Trust me, you won’t have to wait very long. The topics cover everything you could imagine…seriously, everything. Then I click the answers, evaluate whether or not I have something to add, and proceed accordingly. It’s ordered with just the right amount of chaos, it’s functional with just the right amount of drama. It seriously sparks all my words.
So you’ll see those posts pop up here. I am not quite sure how I’ll do that yet. What I do know is that I am not making the same mistake I did in the beginning with TAT and not cross posting stuff into a place where I can archive it for myself.
Additionally, I think some of the questions are great conversation pieces. And, while I have a pretty fair amount of confidence in what I think when I think it, I am open to the idea that there is a perspective out there that I haven’t considered. That’s where you come in. And the wider my perspective, the greater my capacity for empathy. And, I am becoming increasingly convinced that empathy is a cornerstone of my happiness.