How Curious Are You?
It may be the single most important trait to have. Here's why.
John was on a video call with an old friend the other day, and because I was working, I paid scant attention. But as the call continued, I was struck by how often his friend asked questions about the new apartment, life in Italy, the music biz. He was curious, and it occurred to me that out of all his family, he was the one who didn’t constantly talk about himself. Bright people, but the minute the conversation isn’t about them, they get a glazed look in their eyes. You know the one. It’s that empty, joyless expression your teenage children have when you try to talk to them about drugs, grades, condoms, or wearing a seatbelt.
John’s friend isn’t like that.
I know a lot of incurious people. A lot. It’s not that they’re just hopelessly narcissistic (although some of them are); they really aren’t curious, not about you personally, or life in general. They don’t want to know how or why things work. They don’t want to know how or why you work. They just want to talk, mostly about themselves, and mostly because they are not at peace with their thoughts.
These are good people, many of them. Some would likely give the shirts off their backs if the occasion demanded it. But for one reason or another, they lack the openness and curiosity that usually lead to positive social outcomes.
Research shows that curious people have better relationships, which is why I find it troubling that in myth, Pandora’s insatiable curiosity compels her to open a forbidden jar (echoes of Eve, the apple, and Eden, anyone?), thereby releasing all the evils of humanity. Only hope remained at the bottom of the jar, which was frantically stoppered before she, too, flew away and was lost.
Curiosity is the predisposition to recognize and search for new knowledge and experiences. Without it, we would have never walked on the moon, painted a canvas, written a line of code, or codified thoughts into laws.
And yet, curiosity is given a bad rap. Why?
My guess is that parents unwittingly discourage curiosity because it can be dangerous. Perhaps they feel stupid not being able to answer a child’s million questions. Certainly, institutionalized learning trounces rebellion and curiosity out of most kids. We’re still teaching them the same way we did a hundred years ago. Is it any wonder they’re too bored to ask questions? I don’t know many adults who could sit motionless at a desk for eight hours and be force-fed a steady diet of information they have no interest in and could never apply in the “real” world.
Bit by bit, year after year, our native curiosity is crushed under the wheels of a system that cares more about test results than actual learning. In my own case, I was a terrible student. C+ at best. I skipped school as often as possible, but not to get into trouble. I snuck back home to write novels and read books that I wanted to read, not the ones I was assigned to. Forcing an asymmetrically gifted kid like me to take math and science was—and is—an injustice. We get nothing out of it, except the kinds of grades that keep us from getting into colleges where we are likely to shine.
Think of what we lose in society as a whole, as well as in our own interpersonal relationships, when our natural, beautiful curiosity is slowly leached from us.
Curious people:
Are not afraid to admit when they don’t know something.
Ask lots of questions.
Are willing to be wrong.
Listen attentively and without judgment.
Are open-minded.
Are usually creative.
Prioritize learning.
Rarely live in the past.
Are able to marshal their focus.
Will sometimes annoyingly badger people to get an answer.
A passive and incurious population is far easier to control than one that has been taught to question. Having said that, far too often these days, the ones questioning are being sucked down QAnon/conspiracy rabbit holes because they were never taught critical thinking skills.
In the general debate about how we are dumbing ourselves down, the word that’s usually missing is curiosity. How do we not kill it, and how can we allow it flourish?
The easiest place to start is interpersonally. Ask questions of the people you already know. Even if some of these people are incredibly tedious, force yourself to stay present. If necessary, redirect with additional questions when they stray off topic, and “fake it till you make it.” Eventually, you’ll stumble across something that makes you sit up and take notice.
Don’t ask questions that can be answered with a yes or no. Ask open-ended questions. How did you get into sales? What age were you when you moved to Seattle? What did you think about the way they taught sex-ed at your school? Then listen. Really listen. Even if there’s a voice inside you screaming, “I’m losing my mind!” Emotional self-control is a virtue everyone should seek to cultivate.
Full disclosure: listening is harder for some men, especially American men. According to the the brilliant linguistics scholar and bestselling author, Deborah Tannen, some men don’t just speak to communicate; they are jockeying for status. Listening is passive. Un-manly. Holding the floor is baked into the male social code of supremacy and aggression, which is what makes it hard for them to really listen.
Doesn’t mean they can’t though.
If we make a practice of discovering what’s most interesting about other people, our relationships improve, and that invariably leads to more happiness. For some, social interactions produce anxiety, and yet even there, cultivating curiosity can help. Asking questions provides a wonderful way to hide (don’t ask me how I know this): you’re exposing nothing of yourself, and you’re getting credit for being a great listener. If that isn’t a win/win, what is?
If positive social traits like generosity, compassion, and empathy can be learned, surely curiosity can be, too. Try it. Re-igniting curiosity in a long-term romantic partner can often save a relationship that’s floundering. It can make you a better and far more likable friend.
Einstein said, “The important thing is not to stop questioning.”
You’re not going to argue with Einstein, are you?
What are you curious about? I sincerely want to hear about it. Please leave your comments below.
I am curious, but not nosy. For instance, when I am doing one of my house-sitting side gigs - I take in everything that is left on display; but I do not, ever, look in drawers, medicine cabinets, or snoop in any way. I also never knowingly pry when having a conversation - I figure people will tell me whatever personal details they want me to know, and I am fine with that.
Patriarchal societies tend to toward the authoritarian almost by definition. So, in addition to the pre-existing sexism, curiosity stands out as a challenge to those who would legislate the world ex fiat. So curiosity becomes (one of) the original sin(s) of women.
There's a certain lack of curiosity in much of contemporary physics, strangely enough, and it is "baked in" (as you said; now I can't get that phrase out of my mind) to the "gatekeepers": people like Stephen Hawking, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Laurence Krauss. All of them have variously denounced philosophical inquiry, for example. Hawking declared quantum mechanics was basically done, even as the physicists in the field were holding their heads in despair at their decades of failure to make any sense of the subject. String theory is metaphysical gibberish devoid of even the abstract possibility of empirical content, but these folks' attitude is, "who cares? The math is clever!" Gravitational cosmology (the big stuff; the play ground of general relativity) is ruinously anti-scientific in its increasing rejection of evidence in favor of the standard models. Physicist Michael Disney has shown that there are more free parameters in the theory than there are independent observations to test it, meaning that the theory is impervious to ANY form of real test. And every time a problem does arise, the community (driven by the gatekeepers) simply invents a new parameter and declares the theory "confirmed." (I've been introducing the term "model centrism" into the scholarship to label this attitude.)
A few folks (including myself) keep pushing back. But the only ones that can do so are folks like me with no career or reputation to defend, or a few others whose careers and reputations are too solid to touch. But folks just starting out are generally not permitted to explore alternatives to the "Standard Model." (A common saying in quantum mechanics is "shut up and calculate.")
My latest divagations have been on the nature of complexity and simplicity. (Side bar: I thought I was reading up on this stuff on my own. But there's this book I've been asked to comment on (one chapter) and though it isn't coming up until the 2nd week of November, I thought I should check which chapter it was. It's the chapter on "complex systems." In psychology, this is known as "priming.") A thought I've been chewing on is this: "Is complexity really a feature *of* the world, or is it only a character of our theories *about* the world?" (For anyone who is curious <-- see what I did there? -- about where I am so far, I've a blog post on the subject, part 1 of 2, #2 is yet to be written: https://garyherstein.com/2021/08/24/complexity-it-aint-simple-part-1-of-2/ )