When faced with a situation we don't understand or find unbearable, we often ask a question to try to comprehend it, perhaps thinking that understanding something helps us distance ourselves from it and might even allow us to transform it or, at least, experience it with less intensity. That question could be, "How did we get here?" or its variant, "When did it all begin?" In any case, it's about tracing history, about finding a precedent for what's happening to us.