How will you learn?

This is a father-and-son joke that I adapted to be about Nasruddin and his father:

Nasruddin and his son went fishing.

"How does the boat float?" asked his son.

"I don't know, son," Nasruddin replied.

Then the son asked, "How do fish breathe under water?"

"I don't know," said Nasruddin.

"Why is the sky blue?"

Again, Nasruddin answered, "I don't know."

"Where do clouds come from?"

"I do not know."

"What makes the wind blow?"

"I do not know."

Then, after a few minutes of silence, Nasruddin's son asked, "Does it bother you that I'm asking so many questions?"

"Of course not, my son. If you don't ask questions, how will you ever learn anything?"

I love this gentle little joke. Is it making fun of Nasruddin? Perhaps, but even if Nasruddin is a fool here, I think he is a wise fool. Nasruddin does not know the answer to any of the questions, but he is not afraid to say that he does not know. Did his son learn anything from this series of questions? Admittedly, he did not get answers to his questions, but he saw his father being patient and honest, and in the end his father spoke true words of wisdom: if you don't ask questions, how will you ever learn anything? So, while this story is meant to make fun of the father, I think it's actually a wisdom tale disguised as a joke... which is true of many traditional Nasruddin stories, and that, I suppose, is why it is so easy to adapt modern jokes to be stories about Nasruddin.

photo by Carol Von Canon