We Need the Courage to be Curious

Why "why" is not enough.

If I could choose one aspect of myself to optimize, I’d pick curiosity.

Being curious is a keystone skill: one that unlocks a myriad of other abilities and traits which make life richer and more meaningful.

It’s also a great indicator of where we are emotionally and mentally — lacking curiosity is a symptom of spiritual impoverishment and maybe even depression.

But there’s another reason I’d focus on curiosity if I was able to improve only one thing:

I’m not very good at being curious.

Is curiosity just seeking answers?

It’s pretty easy to appear curious without embodying true curiosity.

In my case, I’ve spent years searching for answers to big questions.

I’ve tried to understand how I’m made, why I act the way I do, what might make me less anxious, more generous, more present (and in the process, how it might work for others as well).

Along the way, I’ve learned a lot, and I’m grateful for it.

But I’ve realized that my searching has not been an act of curiosity in the way I thought.

It’s not why, it’s what.

I’ve always seen being curious as “asking why”:

• Why am I like this?

• Why does the world work this way?

• Why is it so hard to be happy?

But something I read this week shifted my understanding of what curiosity actually is. The authors of The Secret Language of the Body suggest a different definition.

Curiosity pivots the mind from asking why (judgement) to asking what (discovery).

The authors explain how curiosity is observing what’s happening, rather than rushing to judge and explain.

Until I read that passage, I had never considered the connection between asking why and judgement. I was — and am still — blown away by the thought that asking why might actually inhibit curiosity, rather than fostering it.

Looking at the questions I listed above, though, I see now that the answers to all of them would begin like this:

“Because…”, followed by some clear and final-sounding explanation.

Asking why something is the way it is tends to imply a definitive response. But here’s the problem: there is no absolute answer to a truly curious question.

Curiosity isn’t about definitive and settled answers. It’s about noticing what is.

Healthy thinking is curious thinking.

The nice thing about finding answers is that it prevents you from having to think anymore.

Once you know how things are, you can stop living in the messy uncertainty of life and attain a newfound peace, with full authority over reality. You are in total control of everything that happens because you know the real truth of things.

If reading that makes you uncomfortable, it’s probably because you’re not a fascist.

The messy uncertainty of life is life. As much as we’d like it not to be some days.

And no matter how hard we fight to control the chaos of reality with systems of belief and certainty — be they scientific, philosophical, or political — reality stubbornly remains in all its shifting unpindownability.

That’s why curiosity serves as an excellent barometer of our mental state. When I’m hungrily searching for answers that will define and contain my human experience, it may look like I’m curious, but what it really shows is that I’m afraid.

When, instead, I risk noticing what’s actually happening around and inside me, without judgement or the need for certainty, it’s a sign I’m calm and comfortable enough to be present with reality.

Why it’s so hard to stay curious.

Being curious about our moment-to-moment experience seems as if it should be easy.

All it takes it noticing. What’s happening in my body? Where do I feel pain? Where am I tight? What feels good?

When I actually try to do it, though, I realize how little access I have to my own experience.

There are massive parts of me that are off-limits to my consciousness. This is likely because I learned early in my life to hide those parts from myself in order to stay safe.

Accessing the reality of what I’m feeling and experiencing requires ignoring those safety measures and accessing things my subconscious believes I’m not supposed to.

And that’s just my personal experience! It gets even more complicated when we broaden the picture to include more lives than just our own.

The courage to be curious about other people.

What about other people? What about people who are entirely different from me? People whose beliefs I find confusing or downright wrong?

Instead of asking “why” (which leads pretty quickly to “because they’re disgusting" — just look at the political discourse in the United States at the moment for an example of that human tendency in action) can I start by asking “what”?

• What are people actually saying?

• What might those words mean to them?

• What does the world look like from their perspective?

That’s a level of courageous curiosity I absolutely have not attained.

I think the lack of that kind of curiosity is part of what’s creating the very scary moment we find ourselves in at the moment.

I’m going to work on curiosity in my own life — asking what I’m thinking and feeling and what’s happening around me, and noticing the answers without judgement — and also in my observations of the world at large.

Doing so won’t be easy: news and social media are built around people providing definitive answers to questions, even when one person’s “definitive” is the exact opposite of another’s, and none of them allow for things to be uncertain and nuanced.

The less curious we are, the less human we are, and the less we see the humanity of other people.

Finding the courage to ask what’s happening with deep curiosity, and embracing what we find even when it’s not comfortable, are a pathway to a kinder, calmer, and better future. I wonder if we can walk it together.