Why A Fly

After over twenty years of sitting in the Big Chair in my psychotherapy office, this children's book was written in response to the preponderance of "Why?" It is for children who begin to ask everyone, it is also for the worried, the anxious, the curious and the seekers - of any age.

There are places in the book to just sit and wonder and there is a lesson to learn about the questions in life that do not have answers. In Buddhist philosophy these questions are called Koans. We are slowly enlightened by the process of sitting with
the unanswerable, rather than in the finding of the answer.

What a relief.
Here is a little bit of the book, just a taste.

“Why a fly?” asked I, asked I.
“Why a fly?” I want to know!
No one can tell me.

I asked my mom, “Why a fly?”
And she said, “What?”
“Why are there flies?” I asked.
“I cannot tell you why a fly.
There’s just no way to say.”

I can tell you one thing:
I did not like her answer.
Why do I have such a troublesome WHY?
It’s big and noisy, always demanding answers,
making new questions.

No one can tell me Why a tree.
No one can tell me Why.
I asked my Dad, “Dad, why the sky?”
and he just smiled.

“You know, you‛re cute,” he told me.
I was not cute. This was serious.
I shoved my Why to him.

“WHY AM I HERE?”
I asked him, I asked him.

WHY ARE WE HERE?
I want to know!”

“Because you were born,”
he told me.

That’s How I got here, not Why, I thought.
I tried to stay quiet about it.