Curiosity

 So what is curiosity? This blog is going to try to address some of the reasons why curiosity is so important for personal growth and evolution.  Wikipedia says “curiosity” comes from the Latin cūiositās meaning careful, diligent, curious. “It is a quality related to inquisitive thinking. Such as exploration, eivestigation and learning”. To be curious is to be in a constant state of wonder. It is, I think, to be constantly learning, to have a mind constantly open to new experiences, alert, attentive.

When most of us look at this jumble of jigsaw pieces they see just that, a mess of different pieces. Others can see bits of the whole and some people can probably work out pretty quickly what the picture will look like from just a few pieces.  For most of us, a jig-saw puzzle just doesn’t make sense until we start joining up the pieces. Most of us would have a strategy for doing this. Maybe you dig out the pieces of similar colours, let’s say green to start with. I can see at least 8 pieces with green on it. Then another colour - orange. And another - yellow. And so on. You get my drift. We have a process for this, a simple strategy for making the task of fitting all the pieces together to make a picture that makes sense.

I don’t think having a sense of curiosity necessarily makes you smarter but I do believe it makes it a lot easier to learn new things. I think it also helps us process information better. If we’re curious we are regularly asking ourselves “Is there a better way to do this?” Neuroscience tells us the brain is plastic and can stretch to accommodate new learnings. I take heart in this because my own brain seems to have clocked off over the break and I’m having to work hard now to cajole it out of its self-protective little cave.

This picture of the jumbled up jigsaw pieces is a good image of what my brain often feels like. Messy, disorganised, non-sensical. Stress, anxiety, overwhelm make it worse. Does your brain look like this sometimes? Curiosity tries to seek out the meaning behind the things we encounter in life. It gives those things a place and connects them to the things we already know something about. In other words, our curious brain tries to put things in order, like placing the jigsaw pieces of similar colours in tidy little piles before we start working on the puzzle. It breaks thinking down into bite-sized chunks. It helps up work through the little bits of learning so we can get to the big picture.

I read somewhere recently that a five year old asks “why” over 20 times a day. Amazing! As adults we tend not to do that. We tend to Google our question or find another way to find out “how” or “why”. Maybe we should ask each other “why” more. This would help sate our curiosity as well as build connection, empathy and trust with others. I’m going to try to do that more. What about you? What will you do to encourage curiosity in yourself and others?

New Year, New ...?

At the beginning of every new year I do what most I suspect do. I sit down and have a think about how I want this brand new shiny straight-of-the box year to look like for me.

For starters, I set up this blog some time ago - several months, maybe a year has passed and I still didn't manage to sit down and write an actual post. I'm good at that. Starting something, getting it all set up and then not following through. This year I'm going to try really hard to rectify that.

I'm not sure what exactly prevents me from getting the show on the road. Could be fear, laziness, procrastination, self-doubt, lack of ability, lack of imagination, poor ability to prioritise, "busy-ness" - all of the above. Whatever it is it really stops me in my tracks.

Every New Year I try to think of a theme. My yoga teacher got me onto this. It's called a "sankalpa" or an intention. We set one at the beginning of each yoga class and I try to stick with the same one throughout the year. In the past it's been "Joy", "Equilibrium", "Peace", "Wisdom" and so on.

This year I've decided my theme, resolution, intention or sankalpa is going to be "Curiosity".

And here's something I came across when I was walking in the bush recently. It's a humble dandelion. The kind you'd make a wish and blow on as a kid. This dandelion caught my attention. It was huge. Around the size of a closed fist and it seemed so symmetrically perfect to me. Take a look. How does nature do these amazing things? "Curiouser and curiouser" as Alice would say.

So here's to the New Year.  🎉 I hope you can find a dandelion as lovely as this one and make a wish for a 2018 full of curiosity and creativity. 

Dandelion.