Why discuss the old issues, the perennial questions? If we have no great new insights, no strongly critical views, why ask the why’s and wherefores?

Why? Because our memories are short. We lose – and have lost -questions and how they were handled; and this is important to know if only to see our own seeing, in the present.

Why? Because earlier minds included some of the best and wisest, the ones with whom we would like to walk together in the world and have them, their thinking, share the ideas of today.

Why? Because the places we are now, how we got here was often determined shaped or formed by some of these persons. Knowing what they said and asked and why, will help to inform today’s discussions: noting what is similar, what different; what old, what new.

Why? Because we lose sight, occasionally, of what fundamental issues are, as the current marketplaces of our own lives and experiences may elevate particular issues and obscure others. They may offer hope or drive us to varieties of pessimism, skepticism, cynicism, or nihilism. These we must deal with, fight, combat, and envision other futures.

Why? We much attempt to understand and gain insight into who we are in any moment. In any age, as we mature individually we must strive to attain the wisdom whose primary issue and mission is the quest for what is wisdom.

Why discuss the old issues…? Because each new generation must be taught to see that we are part of the continuity, progresses, hopes, problems, tendencies both to love and to destroy, that have enabled our own lives and wonderment.

Why discuss? – to give us the opportunity to express our voices in the domains of life, now upon an earth whose size makes it urgent that we join together in becoming students of life and of the world.

Why? So we are not sucked-in to destroy out of ignorance or thoughtlessness…or in the name of any apparent purpose.

Why discuss? To explore others…and ourselves.