The most creative thing you can do today is be curious. Curiosity is both innate and developed. You can push yourself a little, lean into the questions, cultivate wonder. Ask a question. If ideas are birds flying overhead we can either look up and investigate their wingspan, their flight patterns, their interaction. We can cock our heads in wonder. Or we can ignore them and let them fly right by – we can look down or straight ahead and ignore them until they poop on our head. How much energy does it take to wonder about something, find out a little more about it, ask a question, seek knowledge? It takes just about as much time and effort as looking up at the birds. A tiny bit of curiosity leads to knowledge and inspiration that is limitless. How can you wake up your curiosity today? Can you look up and ponder the birds?
Ian Leslie in his book Curious discusses the human decline in curiosity, the lessening of sustained quests for knowledge. How did we become so incurious? Are distractions of modern society so plentiful that we cannot focus on something long enough to learn about it? Is our obsession with doing, accomplishment, competition, public expressions of our success taking over our curious minds? Does the speed with which we work and live, wanting fast results make curiosity impossible? What do we gain when we give up curious pursuits? More time? More certainty? What do we lose when we stop being curious? That list seems endless.
Great thinkers have long advocated curiosity as a trait above most others:
The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery each day.
― Albert Einstein
“I think, at a child's birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift would be curiosity.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt
Incuriosity is the oddest and most foolish failing there is.”
― Stephen Fry,
“The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.”
― Plutarch
“Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious.”
― Stephen Hawking
Without curiosity we can become narrow minded and susceptible to groupthink. Incurious people are at risk to become intolerant, prejudiced, shallow, limited, artless and fearful. If knowledge is power then ignorance is weak. Yes it can be scary to ask questions. It's chancy to open our minds to the new, the unknown is also the uncertain. But it is not necessarily safer to be less inquisitive. The curious nature we were born to can lead us to a life of rich amazement. With curiosity we become interested, and therefore interesting. Curiosity is brave. It is also, at least in my mind, a life saver.
Meditation: What are you curious about right now? What’s one new thing you can ask about today? What are you willing to learn?