Troubleshooting Life 5, January 5 - Work Backwards from the Deep Burning Questions (DBQs).

2022 - I think family interview projects are great.

They are a great way for young people to sit with their grandparents and learn family history, their real history, not that colonizer crap you memorize to get a 4 or 5 on the APUSH test.

In fall 2019, I sat down with my grandparents and others uncles and aunties I am blessed (cursed?) with, and recorded some interviews with them.

Originally I planned to post them to Facebook or YouTube. Then I learned about Facebook-Cambridge Analytica, realized this project is not for others, mostly just for me. And I quit Meta.

I had some deep burning questions, DBQs, ones we all may or may not have.

Who am I? Why am I here? Where did I come from? What does my life mean?

What should my life mean when I am ninety years old and about to die?

My godmother once told me and my brothers a story about her dad, my grandfather, who up until this moment, I only ever saw as a sweet old man.

This story came to me and my brothers over pizza, as you eat in New Jersey, and it was in response to a question I asked, “were my grandparents different to you as a kid than to us?”

My aunt, paraphrased: “I needed a new uniform for school, money comes to dad’s bank account the first week of month. It was the last week of the month, but I really needed this uniform, I kept saying now now now, and my dad kept saying money comes in days, but I kept saying now now now! Then dad takes the bracelet off my mom’s wrist to sell it, and get the uniform that day… until I stopped him. Tears in my eyes.”

And telling that story made my aunt actually cry, Reader, I asked this DBQ question to troubleshoot my own life! But now, brothers watching, I am troubleshooting my crying aunt.

I learned something important about my grandfather, as did my brothers. If I did not muster up courage to voice this DBQ, I never would have seen my grandfather holistically, as a whole man who lived, through his daughter, my beloved aunt. My old “sweet old man” image now changes.

So Reader, Work Backwards from the Very, Very End. It is only by asking a deep, burning question, “dbq” as I say, that we can find philosophical medicine the soul never knew it needed.

In 2023 and beyond, Reader, what could this sort of thinking and troubleshooting do for you?

ACTION POINT: Work Backwards from the Deep Burning Questions (DBQs).