Design Research: Why?

“I read a page of Plato's great work. I can no longer understand anything, because behind the words on the page, which have their own heavenly brightness, to be sure, there shines an even brighter, an enormous, dazzling -why- that blots out everything, cancels out, destroys all meaning. All individual intelligence. When one has understood, one stops, satisfied with what one has understood. I do not understand. Understanding is far too little. To have understood is to be fixed, immobilized. It is as though one wanted to stop on one step in the middle of a staircase, or with one foot in the void and the other on the endless stair. But a mere why, a new why can set one off again, can unpetrify what was petrified and everything starts flowing afresh. How can one understand? One cannot.” 
― Eugène Ionesco, Fragments of a Journal

I agree with Ionesco and I think his sentiment here lines up well with something which has been put forward recently in my Design Research course.  A sequence of five whys is a strategy to get at the real meat of an interview.  Though I can't say I agree with it entirely, I'm told it should go something like this:

Me - So Jane, why do you paint?

Jane - Well I like it...it brings me pleasure 

Me - Why does it bring you pleasure?

Jane - I think it helps me to stop thinking so much

Me - Why do you think it helps with that?

Jane - Well its like my attention is demanded to be on things like color, motor control and things like this...but in real time...in the moment. 

Me - Why would that fact that your attention is on things like color and motor control be better than thinking?

Jane - It's a relief of sorts...you know? I just don't want to live constantly in a world in which I am thinking about bills or the anger I have over that little torn bit on my dryers lint trap...Thinking is overrated, I want to spend less and less time there.

Me - Why is thinking overrated? Don't we need to think?

Jane - Of course its necessary.  I just have come to believe, there is no peace there.  As I get older, I realize living a good life is not about drama and excitement.  A good life is about living peacefully.  That is what I am shooting for.  I don't need to run around and drink til I'm blind and end up in bed with some half alive frat-boy who has bad body odor and strangely dim eyes...I think I could have been a monk in another life...maybe I still could be...maybe I am a monk...Oh god...should I be painting?  I am not sure. 

Me - So is it fair to say you should stop painting to become a monk?

Jane - I'm not sure...I'm scared. 

Great! See that?  It works! (At least it seems so in creative non-fiction.)  I think it is actually a little obnoxious to push repeatedly with -why- after -why- in this manner.  Perhaps I'm slightly over confident that I can get to the gold within another persons answers without a tactic like this.  Yes, let's keep asking why, but let's not get carried away with the format, people.  I'm sure we all have some ability to continue asking -why- without actually attacking an interviewee with such annoying repetition.