curiosity-feature

“The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.” ― Dorothy Parker

This curious redheaded boy was always in my childhood room, no matter where we lived. My parents must have believed he would spark the same curiosity in me.

Whatever its origin, I’m making the choice to hold onto my curiosity, to keep looking past the horizon, to explore each new idea for as long as I am able.

While some may feel I have reached an age to “just relax” in the comfort of my beliefs, I find I am more curious about the world than I have ever been. Are you like that, always curious?

My parents wanted me to be curious. They kept the redheaded boy hanging in my room when I started school and he was still hanging on the wall when I went off to college. My education was important to them. My mother even took a job to pay my tuition after my dad died when I was 19.

I am grateful for my education, not because of the facts I learned, but because college kindled my desire to ask questions, to listen for answers, then ask even more questions. The answers have not always been what I wanted to hear, they have often upset me but that has been helpful. This cycled discomfort moves my thinking in a good direction.

People who remain curious, I believe, are able to be flexible in the way they view the world. New thoughts and facts combine with long held beliefs and knowledge and allow society to evolve.

A corner in my shop: the curious redheaded boy along with the pressure gauge from the boiler in our old home, a family group photo from by Coming of Age party when I turned 65. Also, a souvenir from the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair my parents saved, and a trilogy of me as a baby. I am glad my mother saved the redheaded boy; I need to ask her where she got it and why. To me the redheaded boy always seemed curious and adventuresome. I hope that’s what she wanted because that’s the redheaded boy she got.

This process has been good for me, as sometimes my first understanding or feeling about something has been wrong.

Politicians don’t seem to like this flexible process. Maybe they aren’t curious because they are afraid of being labeled as flip floppers; that is bad in politics, I guess. I don’t think I would be a good politician.

To me, reform and evolvement are more important than any constant, unflinching dogma. It is this curiosity of the new, grounded in the past, that fulfills my journey.

Dorothy Parker tells me that curiosity is a cure for boredom. If she is right, I won’t be bored as I grow older.

Can you describe ways your thinking is different today than five or ten years ago?

If you want future generations to have an education, to be prepared to deal with complexity, diversity, and change in the wider world, what is the best way to insure their rounded education for our future?

As always, the conversation starts here.

“It only takes 20 years for a liberal to become a conservative without changing a single idea.” – Robert Anton Wilson

Epilogue

 

This video, shown with permission, reveals a ten-year old child’s inner curiosity and creativity. She created the story, wrote the script, propped the cell phone up in a chair and let it roll.

Turn the volume up, listen to her voice. She is the kind of kid that will change the world. You can count on it; I am.