I find that the most interesting people I know are those that are truly interested in something...or many somethings...and aren't afraid to express it.
Like humans under the age of 12.
We are born with a natural curiosity...a drive to explore. Babies exit a mother's womb and immediately start taking in the world around them. They start by focusing on the things right in front of them since that's all they can see. First it's basically faces and nipples...the things that will help them stay alive and grow. As their field of vision expands so does their curiosity.
What is that brightly colored thing hanging over me when I wake up in the morning? I wonder what I need to do to get up there and touch it.
What are these things at the end of my arms and the little wavy things attached? I wonder what they taste like and if they could help me touch that thing over my bed.
What is that fur-covered baby over there? I wonder what would happen if I could move toward it or lie down on top of it.
All of these basic curiosities guide growth and development and provide a foundation for lifelong learning.
I used to watch my son, when he was a toddler, lie on the floor running his toy cars back and forth in front of his face to figure out just what in the world was going on. Every once it a while we would sit up and try to disconnect the wheels from the chassis. When he couldn't, he would lay back down and roll it in front of his face more slowly. He was curious and he explored. Eventually he was able to disassemble the car and he cried because this type of curiosity taught him that things can be broken. And then sometimes can be fixed. And then he wanted to learn how to fix them. It was a beautiful chain of events sparked by his natural curiosity.
When children learn to talk, the era of "whowhatwhywhenhow" is ushered in and they can ask about all the curiosities that they experience. They have zero inhibitions and so they will pretty much ask anyone, anything, anywhere, anytime -- mostly grownups and hopefully to their satisfaction. This continues for a while and then something -- or a combination of things -- happens and the value of curiosity is slowly diminished for some children.
Questions can sometimes not seem as cute coming from a 10-year-old as they are coming from a 5-year-old. And disassembled electronics are more of a nuisance than a toy car without wheels. The cost of curiosity can rise as children get older. This can cause a congratulatory smile and satisfactory answer to be replaced with a deeply irritated sigh or a roll of the eyes and an answer like "I don't know," or "because I said so." As kids get older, their questions move from fun opportunities to instruct about how things work and what comes next to less-fun institutional challenges such as why we do things a certain way and who is in charge. They are still questions of curiosity but not as easy to answer because they can be subjective -- whether the person being asked once to admit it or not. These are important intersections for adults and children. Do we make them accept our way as the only way? Do we tell them to figure it out on their own with very little guidance? Or do we figure out how to honor their questions, help them explore as many possible answers as possible, and risk them choosing a different road than we chose for ourselves?
As adults we do things and believe things because we came to one of these intersections and were guided (or abandoned) through one of those processes -- do it my way, figure out on your own, or let's think about this together. Regardless of how we arrive at our methodology or our belief system, it is very uncomfortable to have these things questioned because there may have been some pain in arriving at your destination. Or it may be that these foundational "whats", "whos", "whys", "whens", and "hows" have been woven into your sense of self and pulling at the threads could cause you to unravel.
I've already done this work and figured out the right answer, why do I have to keep stretching the boundaries of my certainty?
Because that's the only way we keep growing. And since children are far more likely to do what we do that to do what we say, it behooves us to keep growing and learning and questioning.
When the primary adults in a child's life stop valuing curiosity, those kids stop valuing their own curiosity and that of of others. For a while, they may harbor quiet curiosity which they will satisfy in secret through their own resourcefulness..This wasn't so bad for us Generation Xers who had to rely on our friends, Encyclopedia Britannica, and Judy Blume for our answers to life's most pressing curiosities. The fruits of resourcefulness in 2016 are freakin' terrifying in quantity, availability, and speed. The best-case scenario is that they end up just fine having sought only the wisdom of non-exploitative adults and books that didn't stifle their sense of wonder. The worst-case scenarios (and there are many) are tragedies your see on the evening news. The in-between (which I believe is the rule rather than the exception) is simply atrophy.
Think about most high schoolers you know. They are afraid to show enthusiastic interest in anything. Culturally they have been discouraged from showing passion or emotion toward anything except sports (but only certain ones) and religion (but only certain kinds). It's ok to get all worked up in a crowd, but not when you're alone in the arena.
Too much interest in anything else (books, science, horses, art, chess, something that's not a "real" sport) makes you a geek or a heretic, both of which are punishable by social death...the worst kind for someone going through adolescence. What you end up with is a population in the midst of this wildly opportune time to absorb and analyze and apply new information and they slowly shut down.
No curiosity. No real learning. Just data exchange. Rote memorization, regurgitation, conformity, and repetition. Life on an assembly line.
I am so guilty of wanting to avoid the hard questions -- the one's that are woven into my sense of identity. And I've noticed that their prime questioning time is my prime winding-down time...late evening. These two things together are pretty effective deterrents to encouraging the big questions. I'm not sure I've been doing a good job of fostering their sense of wonder in recent years. In fact, the only thing that has caused me to notice that their's has waned, is a renewed appreciation for my own curiosity...
Why does that person irritate me so? How do I balance self-care with my responsibility to my family and community?Who are the people I can really trust?When will I feel like I have enough?What is the reason behind the excuse?And my courage to face even the questions that some people would deem off-limits...
Who is the real me?What is my purpose on this planet?How did I end up here?When will people realize that I'm a fraud?Why do I believe in God?Introspection is a bitch. And I know that asking big questions will cause some people to think of me as a bitch. Woman aren't often revered for questioning the status quo. My college roommate use to say, bitch is just an acronym for Being In Total Control of Herself. I prefer to think of it as Bravely In Thoughtful Curiosity for Herself.
I can't share with my kids what I don't have myself. If that makes me a bitch...so be it.
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