Rees had been a philosopher for forty years, which meant he had spent forty years asking questions that led to other questions. This was understood to be the work. You did not expect to arrive. The questions were the destination.
At forty-three, he found the question.
He had been working at his desk on a Tuesday afternoon in November, following a line of inquiry about the relationship between recognition and knowledge, whether you could know something you had never been able to name. The line had gone in the expected directions and then made an unexpected turn, and at the end of the turn was the question. He recognized it immediately. He sat with it for an hour without moving.
The question was not mystical. It did not glow. It was a question in language, fourteen words, completely ordinary. What made it the question was that when he held it, every other question he had been carrying went quiet. Not answered. Quiet. As if the others had been waiting for him to find it, and having found it, they had nothing more to do.
He had not asked it aloud. He did not know what would happen if he did, and he found he did not need to find out. The question existed. He had found it. This seemed to be sufficient.
In the thirty-one years since, he had written around it. His books circled it without approaching. His students found the circles instructive. He had been careful not to place the center.
He sometimes thought about what would happen if he asked it aloud in a room full of people. He thought it would either do nothing or do everything. He was not afraid of either outcome. He simply found that he preferred to continue carrying it.
He made coffee. He sat at his desk. Outside, the city continued.