Why so curious?
The hidden superpower of children adults often neglect
“I do, like many of you, appreciate the comforts of everyday routine-the security of the familiar, the tranquility of repetition. I enjoy them as much as any bloke.”
- V for Vendetta
This quote perfectly sums up what plagues the adult mind and leaves it caged in its idle state. As we grow, we become more and more rigid. Where there was once freedom to play, we are now enslaved in a monotonous routine.
Now, this isn’t inherently bad. There are two sides to every coin. But if we neglect the other half, we are doomed to live lives that lack creativity, spontaneity, and meaning. If we fall for the trap of the mundane, our lives slowly wither into a walking death.
Are you willing to spend your life accepting the status quo? Or would you rather dare greatly into the unknown?
For me, I’ve never been one to buy into the rigidity fully. I’ve always felt called to blaze my own trail, seek answers for myself, and be ruthlessly committed to pursuing my curiosity. Are you with me?
If so, let’s explore, together, why curiosity is so powerful, what dangers of curiosity we should be aware of, and how we can practically use curiosity as a skill to enhance our lives.
Down the rabbit hole, we go…
Curiosity as a Superpower
Whether you realize it or not, your entire world is the product of human curiosity. There may be no greater skill in the arsenal of human progress. From the first humans that made tools down to the ones that landed on the moon, curiosity was at the core.
Some may be tempted to explain this phenomenon in terms of “inspiration” or “divination” and fair enough! No one REALLY knows where insight comes from but let’s leave aside the “woo woo” for a moment and reflect on the concrete.
The human mind is a creative machine and the lifeblood of that machine is curiosity. We often don’t think of it, but our internal state often dictates what information is available to us. Here’s an example:
My 11-year-old was trying to solve a problem. She was already pretty tired and irritable. No matter how hard she “tried” she could not figure it out. When I stepped in to help, the answer was right there. Because I wasn’t in this contracted state of frustration, my mind was open to seeing what was hidden in plain sight.
I realized I could teach my daughter a powerful lesson. We stopped, took some deep breaths, had a good laugh, and before you know it…she saw the answer too!
When we’re relaxed, we can become curious.
When we’re curious, our mind begins to open.
When our mind is open, we see things more clearly.
This isn’t just some deep spiritual truth, it’s human neurobiology at its finest!
When we experience internal states such as anger, frustration, irritation, stress, etc. our mind becomes narrow and rigid. Our body produces a stress response which correlates with a reduction in brain function associated with curiosity.
Think about it…if I haven’t had food in three days and my family is starving I am going to feel stressed. When I am out hunting, I need my system narrowly fixed on the environment and need to be hypersensitive to minor fluctuations.
What I am not doing is daydreaming about how I might plant seeds for a sustainable food supply. That comes after the meal, late at night!
When our needs are met and we feel relaxed, the mind naturally begins to open. We start to explore (curiosity) ideas and have flashes of insight. It’s a constant dance.
If you study cognitive development, one idea stands out clearly. Children develop out of a deep drive to be curious. They are testing EVERYTHING around them to see what happens.
What happens if I scream? Someone attends to me.
What happens if I throw my spoon? Someone picks it up.
What happens if I touch that hot pan? I get burned.
We learn best when we feel an inner drive to explore and openness to what we find. Curiosity is therefore the ultimate doorway into creativity, insight, and innovation.
The real superpower is being able to be curious about everything. From that place we question and test our assumptions until we have a breakthrough. This is the creative process in action.
Therefore, the more curious we are, the more creative we will be.
The more creative we are, the more likely we are to produce insight.
The more insight we have, the more likely we are to find innovative solutions to our problems.
Every roadblock you face in life is a problem. You can bang your head against the wall in frustration hoping it will open…or…you can sit back, relax, and get curious…who knows what you’ll find!
The Paradox of Curiosity: A Fine Line
“I know that I know Nothing.” - Socrates.
We’ve all heard the old saying that there is a fine line between genius and insanity. Socrates for example may have been the wisest person of his time but so many of his peers thought he was insane they condemned him to death.
He may have been a little too curious as the originator of the mantra to “question everything” but there are two important lessons to draw from this example. They are the dangers curiosity can bring if we remain naive.
This is the paradox of curiosity…
First, we have to be very cautious when it comes to drawing conclusions. As soon as I have decided I “know” something, I have inherently cut myself off from curiosity. What’s ironic is that curiosity is what drove the initial acquisition of knowledge!
Instead, we should strive for the curiosity of a good scientist. Sure, we may know that the earth is round and that gravity is real…but we are still open to the fact that new data can emerge that may disprove prior knowledge. So while we work with accepted “truth” we are always open and seeking capital T Truth.
The other side of the paradox comes when curiosity is taken to the extreme. Yes, I know I said previously that there is power in being curious about everything but hear me out!
If I am so curious that I lose touch with reality…we tend to call this psychosis. Not everything is wrong all the time. This is the major problem with most conspiracy theories. They take curiosity to such an extreme that they neglect all prior knowledge.
Flat Earth is my favorite example because I went down this rabbit hole when a loved one jumped in head first. Curiosity for curiosity’s sake led them to ignore all the evidence that pointed to this conspiracy being totally false.
Again, it’s ironic that the curiosity that led to the conclusion that flat earth may be true does not also lead one to become curious enough to investigate the other side of the argument.
It’s a fine line to walk, you can’t be too confident and you can’t be too skeptical.
Wisdom is allowing curiosity to drive you within an established set of guardrails to make sure you don’t end up closed-minded or so open-minded that you believe everything you hear.
Highly Skilled, Highly Favored
So far I’ve argued that curiosity is a superpower and as Uncle Ben stated so eloquently in Spiderman, “With great power comes great responsibility.”
So how do we develop the skill of curiosity? I have 3 simple steps to get you started:
#1 Be as a Child
Adults are naturally less curious than kids so we have to go backwards to start. We have to start to be curious about the mundane. This will help train our minds to start from a place of curiosity.
When you look at a plant, get curious about what it is, how it looks, what bugs does it attract, when does it bloom, and why does it grow here and not there. Basically, allow the wonder of life to make itself manifest to you instead of walking idly by thinking, “That’s just a bush.”
When we start to operate with child-like curiosity, we become much more open to learning about new things and enhance our chances of innovation to all of life’s challenges.
#2 Train like an Athlete
Once we’ve endowed ourselves with this new curious perspective, we have to start to train it like a professional athlete. This means we do the work.
Any kid can have a blast kicking a soccer ball but a pro can do things with it that truly mystify the mind. They spent years training, learning, and testing until they achieved mastery. The same is true of curiosity.
We have to explore ideas, allow ourselves to be curious and open to all perspectives, and use things like evidence and reason to determine what might be true and what might not be true.
We are training ourselves to start with curiosity but are building those conceptual guardrails I mentioned earlier. And that means we will make plenty of mistakes. Believe me. I have made plenty of “mistakes” in my life by being too curious or not curious enough. That’s the only way to learn.
#3 Enter the Arena
Most people will spend most of their lives working through steps one and two. That’s ok. Now everyone needs to follow this path and for some, it might even be disruptive.
But for those of you, like myself, who naturally want to achieve…you can’t stay in training forever…you need to go out into the world.
Humans have an incredible capacity for self-deception which I wrote my first blog on. If you really want to pursue a life of seeking answers to big questions, you have to accept that you are likely wrong and need to be tested.
So you start with a curious mind, you train it until you feel fairly confident, and then you test it against the world. The best part? You will likely have your preconceived ideas SHATTERED and you get to start all over.
Occasionally, you will find that your ideas hold up but, more often than not, you won’t. You’ll find that you had a piece of the puzzle but others had pieces you didn’t even know existed.
Over time, however, you start to accumulate battle-tested ideas. You remain open and curious about future changes but in this moment, you feel confident in your position.
This is why great scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs run the modern world. They have this process built into everything they do and are therefore able to produce innovation at breakneck speeds.
TLDR: Think like a scientist and you’ll master the skill of curiosity.
Know Thyself, Maybe…
Some of this may seem abstract so in closing I want to make something tangible.
The best place to start the process of being more curious is being more curious about yourself.
Because we’ve lived in our minds and bodies our entire lives, it can be an easy mistake to think you know yourself. You don’t.
Your mind is designed to deal with what is happening right now and because of that, it filters out a large data set from your self-awareness. It also ignores or suppresses information from the past leaving you partially blind.
There are good reasons for this process but left unchecked, it can drive us crazy. We wake up one day feeling lost and confused wondering who we really are and hopefully that isn’t on your deathbed.
So much of our internal suffering stems from a lack of curiosity about ourselves. There can be a lot of pain beneath the surface and it is often easier to mask that pain than to investigate it but that’s a short-term solution.
When we get more curious about our bodily sensations, the emotions they give rise to, and the thoughts and behaviors they produce, we gain valuable insight into what is holding us back and causing us to suffer.
From there, we have an opportunity to innovate the ways we relate to ourselves and show up in the world. We become more rational, compassionate, and less reactive and extreme.
So my unsolicited advice is this, instead of trying to figure out the world and everything inside of it, try getting curious about yourself and see what happens.
You may be surprised at what you find…
Derek! It was great to see your newsletter pop up!
Great insights, as always!
Thank you! More to come 🤓