What’s a group of cats called?
Well, I’m not so sure either.
Maybe you know.
Maybe you’re wondering.
Maybe you’re checking Google right now. Hey, not judging.
However, in all honesty, that’s not even the main point.
It’s whether or not that question stirred up curiosity in you, no matter how little.
So, over the holidays, I spent the most amazing time with my niece and I made a very interesting discovery.
She’s a Nobel Peace Prize scientist!
Well, not literally. Here’s what I mean:
You see, I realised, first hand, how curious children are. Kids want to explore everything and find out the what, the how, the why.
What’s this shiny metal, how does the TV magically come on, why is fire hot?
And so, I began to wonder, as one usually does. Maybe curiosity comes naturally to all humans, pre-installed. Maybe it’s our default way of life.
But if that’s the case, why then does it seem like somehow, down the line, we lose it? And maybe more importantly, how do we get it back?
Looking closely is valuable at every scale. From looking closely at a sentence, a photograph, a building, a government. It scales and it cascades — one cognizant detail begets another and then another. Suddenly you’ve traveled very far from that first little: Huh.
I’d say that that huh is the foundational block of curiosity. To get good at the huh is to get good at both paying attention and nurturing compassion. But the huh is only half the equation. You gotta go huh, alright — the “alright,” the follow-up, the openness to what comes next is where the cascade lives — Craig Mod
What Curiosity looks like in the Brain
When I think of being curious, I imagine wondering how the stars were made or why I’m hungry for the hundredth time today or something-something about cats.
Are some people naturally more inquisitive than others? Or is it simply a function of a nurturing environment? Or both.
Well, research suggests that curiosity might be linked to certain genes. Which, wait, really?
I once heard someone say being curious is a privilege.
And I get it. After all, doesn’t one need to be well-fed, clothed and sheltered to '“worry” about anything else?
I agree.
Sometimes, hunger is the only curiosity that needs to be fed, at the time.
But apart from enhancing memory and learning, amongst other benefits, curiosity is necessary.
And so, maybe this explains why a lot of people have lost their sense of wonder.
Or maybe not.
Here’s a counter thought:
What if we didn’t lose our curiosity at all? Maybe we never did. Maybe it, like a friend said, morphs. Or maybe rather it’s the object of interest that does. And even though it might not be as grand as questioning what genes are involved in cancer development and discovering a cure, it could be as simple as wondering why your baby niece has suddenly developed a fever.
It can show up in different ways in our lives, however fleeting, before we sometimes choose to let that thought go.
I don’t think we’re less curious.
Isn’t this one of the ways the Google search engine has thrived? Answering questions we’re either too afraid to ask or discovering the ones we didn’t even know we had.
And so, this newsletter was born. Whether it’s why we have a specific fashion sense or the seemingly bigger ones like what do our dreams mean, questions are what drive any society.
So let’s ask some. I’m excited.
Let’s get started.
P. S., they’re called a clowder.
This was quite tingling and clowder kept coming back into my head while reading through it, quite a mess you created there, to begin with.