I am sure each of us could find many reasons to ask "why?" at the beginning of this new year. Why are the commentators so anxious to find a name for the decade just finishing? Why do we always have to list 10 people who best exemplify the events of history? Why is the weatherman so often wrong with no need to apologize?

I could go on in my best two-year-old style, but you get the drift. We do have many unanswerable, sometimes philosophical, questions that are just part of living. But...

As I check the morning I did have to wonder why Dubai felt it necessary to build the world's tallest building. The statistics are impressive. More than 12,000 people will work there. It's elevators can reach speeds of 40 miles an hour. From the top there is a 60 mile view. However, it also seems that the structure has a 4 foot sway in a brisk wind. That might be one reason why I'd rather not work there.

Why build it? It wasn't needed. Empty office space is everywhere available. It cost too much for a country that we have lately watched flirt with bankruptcy. But its name, the Burj Khalifa, in honor of the ruler of Abu Dhabi, reveals something. He heads the country that contributed $10 billion to rescue Dubai from financial collapse.

Why built it? I think because countries are like Dave.

Dave was a high school senior I had in homeroom some years ago. He usually spent that period doing the incomplete homework of the previous night. One day I watched him crumple up a paper and aim for the wastebasket. He missed, so he got up, picked up the paper, took it back to his desk and tried again. This time he made it. I gave a sigh of relief. He started the next assignment, crumpled up another paper, but did not throw it. Instead, he got up, moved the basket farther away, went back to his desk and shot his paper.

When I asked "Why?" he said, "For the challenge, of course. Once I could make it from the regular distance, I needed a new challenge. I had to aim for more."

A building 160 floors high, twice the Empire State Building, is a new challenge on the world's horizon. Dave, who isn't from Dubai, would understand why they built it.

I am given to drawing some spiritual conclusions. And you?