I’ve always been fascinated by absurd questions, the kind that make people at dinner parties pause right in the middle of their fancy cabbage rolls and reconsider their life choices of inviting me.
Questions like: Why is an apple an apple? Who decided that an apple should be called an apple and not, say, a pear or, for some reason, a chimpanzee? Why not call apples “round pears” and pears “pointy apples” and be done with it? Most people laugh when I say things like that. But behind the humor lies something deeper, I’m sure: a quiet curiosity about how the world became what it is, and why we accept the things we accept without a second thought.
A few weeks ago, a new colleague, the kind of person who always seems to know exactly what book you need before you do, recommended Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder. “You’ll love this,” he said. “It’s philosophy disguised as a story. And it’s full of the kind of questions you ask.”
He was right, of course. These people always are.
Stepping Back Into Wonder
One of the central ideas in Sophie’s World is that children are natural philosophers. They stare at the world with wide, unfiltered curiosity. They haven’t been “domesticated” by routine yet. They ask why endlessly, like it’s their part-time job and adults are their exhausted supervisors. (This metaphor isn’t just a random creative twist, it’s basically my actual work life disguised as literature. Sadly, all similarities to reality are intentional.)
Somewhere between childhood and adulthood, we lose that spark (not me, of course).
We stop asking why the sky is blue, why time feels faster on some days than others (I really don’t understand this year, every two minutes is Monday), or why an apple is definitely not a pear according to rules none of us ever voted on. We trade wonder for efficiency, curiosity for certainty. Adulthood happens. Bills, routines, performance reviews and a polite societal memo instructing us to stop asking weird questions and behave like functioning humans, aka adults.
But Gaarder takes your chin like a wise old mentor or an aggressive life coach and turns your face back toward wonder.
He reminds us that philosophy begins exactly where absurdity lives, in the uncomfortable but magical space where the world stops feeling obvious.
The Labels We Never Question
An apple isn’t just an apple. It’s a symbol of how easily we accept inherited meanings. Language, norms, roles, expectations, they’re all agreements we were born into. Most of the time, we never stop to ask who made those agreements or whether they still serve us. And if something as simple as the name of a fruit is an agreed-upon illusion…
Then what else in our lives is built on invisible rules? Our beliefs? Our relationships? Our daily routines? Our sense of who we are?
Absurd questions, when we let them linger, become doorways. They reveal how much of our life is lived on autopilot and how rarely we pause to examine the architecture of our own reality.
Philosophy Is a Return, Not a Departure
Reading Sophie’s World feels like being reminded of something I used to know. Something we all used to know. And this is where things got… interesting. Because somewhere between reading about metaphysics and questioning fruit taxonomy (fancy word, I know, I googled it), I had a revelation:
I might just quit my glamorous, spreadsheet-sparkling HR queen job and dedicate the rest of my life to chasing absurd questions, preferably the kind that come with multiple-choice answers.
Why multiple choice?
Because life is already too hard, and if the universe won’t give me options A, B, C or “All of the above,” then I will simply create them myself.
Imagine it:
Career Path Questionnaire for Dummies:
- Continue solving HR operations puzzles
- Become a full-time philosopher of nonsense
- Travel the world asking strangers if apples know they’re apples
- All of the above, ideally with chocolate.
I don’t know which option I’ll pick yet. But the mere thought of choosing makes me feel rebelliously alive.
So yes, I still wonder why an apple is an apple. But now, thanks to a thoughtful colleague and a beautifully strange book, I finally understand the deeper truth:
It’s not about the apple at all.
It’s about remembering to stay awake. To look twice. To question what we take for granted, not for the sake of rebellion, but for the joy of rediscovering life.
Because in the end, philosophy isn’t a subject. It’s a way of seeing. A way of being. A tiny rebellion against the obvious.
And sometimes, the most profound wisdom begins with the most absurd question, asked by someone who just might be packing up her HR crown and walking barefoot into the forest of wonder…multiple-choice quiz in hand.