Curiosity is having a moment
But do we all understand the mission?
For much of my life, I was led to believe I was doing curiosity wrong.
The why of how I ended up believing that is irrelevant here, but it left me with the impression that I couldn’t quite crack some elusive code that everyone else innately understood. I feared I was incapable of being curious about the right things, or curious enough in the right way.
Of course, back then, it wasn’t clear to me that the fear niggling at me was linked to a distrust of my own curiosity — that epiphany came much later, once age, therapy, and self-reflection kicked in. At the time, this unease simply manifested itself as my trifecta of constant companions — insecurity, anxiety, and embarrassment for no real reason.
I suspect that turning my back on curiosity altogether could have been one outcome of the deep-rooted anxiety I felt around it. Thankfully, though, I continued being curious, but with the caveat that I began to hide what I was curious about from others. In social situations, I transformed myself into a two-dimensional bore, believing it was the easiest way to avoid being outed as someone who wasn’t quite the right kind of curious. Nothing felt worse than bringing up a topic that elicited blank stares, so I eschewed the risk altogether. After all, it was better to be uninteresting than unpopular, right?
This, of course, was all nonsense. I know this now. But, in the moment, it was very real.
And the knock-on effect was that, because I flattened my personality, and avoided bringing up topics that sparked my curiosity, I missed opportunities to have meaningful interactions. Instead, I chose to spend time with people I wasn’t really compatible with, and I went down paths that veered away from my own goals. I also, in hindsight, became so seasoned at not being outwardly curious that I failed to make lasting connections with people I admired professionally, and whose mentorship could have been pivotal — or at least whose conversations would have been inspirational.
All of these little toppling dominoes, simply because I was afraid of my own curiosity.
The point of sharing this isn’t merely to cringe at the missteps of my younger years, but to highlight the broader issue at play — the fact that curiosity isn’t part of our regular, societal discourse. It wasn’t back then, and it still isn’t now. Had it been, someone along the way would have pointed out that I’d internalized bad information. They would have told me that it’s ridiculous to think there’s any right or wrong when it comes to curiosity, because curiosity just is. It’s not elitist, or only for trendsetters, or for the loudest voice in the room; it’s for everyone, equally, and it’s always there, whether we’re aware of it or not, underpinning everything in our lives — including how we learn, form opinions, and make decisions.
Since nobody was having these conversations, though, it took me years to discover this truth on my own. There was no way for me to question curiosity with others, or probe it in thoughtful ways, without judgment; so instead, I sat with my discomfort unnecessarily.
It seems like part of why we don’t discuss curiosity conversationally is because there isn’t an adequate language for it. We have ways of talking around it, but not about it. This may sound like semantics, but there’s a subtle, yet key, distinction.
When we talk around curiosity, we bring it up flippantly, as a glossy term or phrase that assumes everyone understands what’s being implied — as if there’s only one, singular experience or definition of curiosity (when even scientists struggle to find agreement on this!). That implied assumption forces the conversation to contract before it even gets going, because it doesn’t leave any space for individuality.
But if we can learn to talk about curiosity, then that contracted space will open up, allowing nuance in. This is where the magic can happen, and where opportunities for deeper connections are found, as well as opportunities for self-introspection.
I bring this up now because curiosity is having a bit of a moment, which is great. (More on this in a future post.) Hearing so many influential people with big platforms touting the benefits of living curiously is genuinely positive. Not only because curiosity can bring mental health benefits, (which is often the tie-in when it’s discussed), but also because curiosity has a myriad of other science-backed health benefits as well.
But the snag with curiosity currently being in the zeitgeist is that these high-profile conversations are still stuck in the phase of talking around curiosity, and only scratching at its surface. Repeating the mantra live more curiously in front of large audiences sounds great, but without further context to accompany that mantra, it ends up falling flat, and implying laziness. The subtext ultimately becomes that everyone intuitively knows how to live curiously, and therefore if you’re not getting on with doing so, then you’ve obviously chosen not to live the right way.
The reality is more complex, though. Because, as I can attest, not everyone automatically understands the mission when they’re told to live more curiously. Curiosity is entangled with so many other parts of who we are. Our life experiences will no doubt affect our curiosity (or lack thereof), just as life experiences will affect every other aspect of our self. Until we address curiosity at its core, and become comfortable examining it — just as we would examine any other part of our mental health — we can’t expect the current base-level conversations around living curiously to move the needle in any meaningful way.
All of this is to say — Welcome to the Curious Ones! By hearing from people who harness their curiosity regularly, like writers and other creators, and talking to scientists who study the Science of curiosity, the Curious Ones aims to collectively begin to build a language around curiosity, and open up the conversations I wish I could have had years ago.
Because one thing I learned from my past experience is that curiosity is never just curiosity. If we look closely, there’s always a thread connecting it to another part of who we are, and influencing how we engage with our communities. By creating the space needed to follow those threads, we can examine the ins-and-outs of how curiosity affects us individually, as well as how it filters through society, and what it means for each of us to live curiously.
Because when we expand our curiosity, we add color to our lives, and gain new tools to help us navigate the world around us calmer, smarter, and kinder — which honestly sounds ideal after the past few years spent navigating more hills than valleys.
I’m genuinely looking forward to opening up this conversation with you — I think we’re all going to learn a lot from each other!