Curiosity is a Rare Commodity
For most of us, our innate curiosity for the world is beaten out of us by the time we’re 30.
We seem to be constantly surrounded by multiple todo-lists. Goal-oriented action appears to be the only justifiable thing to do at any given moment while the idea of doing something out of sheer curiosity is at best a frightening prospect. “What if I waste my time on a dead end?” I hear you say.
I understand. With so much responsibility on our shoulders, we can barely allow ourselves to go on a tangent here and there.
Instead, we procrastinate, watch Netflix, play video games and do things that are considered “acceptable recreation” by society.
And we’re all doing a terrible mistake.
Leonardo da Vinci is a famous figure. Artist, scientist, painter, renaissance man. Do you know what his primary trait was, besides brilliance? Innate child-like curiosity. Just look at a sample of his to-do lists:
[Find] a book that treats of Milan and its churches, which is to be had at the stationer’s on the way to Cordusio
Get the master of arithmetic to show you how to square a triangle.
Get Messer Fazio (a professor of medicine and law in Pavia) to show you about proportion.
Get the Brera Friar (at the Benedictine Monastery to Milan) to show you De Ponderibus (a medieval text on mechanics)
Ask Benedetto Potinari (A Florentine Merchant) by what means they go on ice in Flanders
Draw Milan
Ask Maestro Antonio how mortars are positioned on bastions by day or night.
[Examine] the Crossbow of Mastro Giannetto
Find a master of hydraulics and get him to tell you how to repair a lock, canal and mill in the Lombard manner
[Ask about] the measurement of the sun promised me by Maestro Giovanni Francese
Try to get Vitolone (the medieval author of a text on optics), which is in the Library at Pavia, which deals with the mathematic.
What kind of curiosity must one possess to want to know so much in such a variety of fields? That is how you become a renaissance man.
Do you remember how it felt like to be a child, when everything seemed new and piqued your curiosity? When was the last time you felt like that? When was the last time that curiosity was the main driving force behind your actions, and not fear, anxiety, chasing prestige or worse? If your answer is “a long time ago” then you are in trouble because curiosity is probably the best motivator for learning, growing and inventing new things.
Leonardo is not alone. The best of us are all eternal seekers of truth, always asking “Why that…?” and “What if…?”. If you want to tap into your inner potential you have to open up and become like that.
I propose a challenge. Nothing crazy, just one week of change.
For a single week, I challenge you to put curiosity at the head of your priorities. Try to observe the world like an artist would — try to notice the tiny details in the world around you and ruminate on their meaning. Ask yourself questions, playfully. “What if I do x? What would happen?”.
You may just find yourself jumping out of your comfort zone to do things you wanted to do for a long time.
Just one week. Go.
