I suppose, as a poet, among my fears can be counted the deep-seated uneasiness that one day it will be revealed that I consecrated my life to an imbecility. Part of what I mean—what I think I mean—by “imbecility” is something intrinsically unnecessary and superfluous and thereby unintentionally cruel. It was a Master who advised that we speak little, better still say nothing, unless we are quite sure that what we wish to say is true, kind, and helpful. But how can a poet, whose role is to speak, adhere to this advice? How can anyone whose role is to facilitate language speak little or say nothing?

I have given my life mostly to banality. On rare occasions I have ascended to mediocrity. I can't claim to have consecrated my life to anything.

I am paid to move people toward vaguely understood goals. I talk and write more of possibilities than actualities. Most respond by wandering wherever they choose.

Questions are good. Questions are often all that's left after a hard rain of reality.  Gadamer argues:

"... the path of all knowledge leads through the question.  To ask a question means to bring into the open.  The openness of what is in the question consists in the fact that the answer is not settled. It must still be undetermined, awaiting a decisive answer.  The significance of questioning consists in the questionability of what is questioned.  It has to be brought into this state of indeterminacy, so that there is an equilibrium between pro and contra.  The sense of every question is realized in passing through this state of indeterminacy, in which it becomes an open question. Every true question requires this openness." (Truth and Method, page 363)