Whilst on the scrounge for some New Year’s blog inspiration, I happened across Elizabeth Gilbert speaking about the little-known benefits of ‘curiosity.’ (Linked here)
She presented a compelling case, in her two minute soliloquy, as to why the ‘spirit of inquiry’ is so much more worth pursuing, than ‘passion’!
According to the ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ author, we have the pleasure, or not, of living in a ‘passion-fetishing society’. A society where passion is pedestalled, perhaps over and above its rank.
I found the argument interesting, and partly because ‘find your passion’ has been the contrapuntal soundtrack against which my generation (and probably others) came of age. It’s the misguided belief that if there’s no ‘belly fire’, you’re not doing it right.
Granted, there are many a success story that can be attributed to the power of ‘finding your passion’, but as Elizabeth pointed out, the issue with relying too much on this, is that it comes with a high margin for disappointed.
Passion, after all, is exciting…yet elusive.
Meanwhile, curiosity is ubiquitous, and can be readily harvested with the loupe of sharper focus.
Elizabeth described it as those ‘hey, what’s that?’ moments.
The moments that, in my case, always seem to spark a ‘google’ search, screen shot or scrawling onto some random, to-hand piece of paper.
In the last few months alone, some of these most memorable, curiosity-fuelled moments have looked like:
‘What is the bright star in the sky?’ (turns out it was Jupiter!)
‘What is a ‘lotus year’? (After reading an article in a magazine about Wallis Simpson)
‘How old is Salisbury Cathedral?’ (after driving past it by chance)
‘Can pigeons kiss?’ (After witnessing some x-rated on-the-fence antics!)
Sometimes, the rewards of these spikes in curiosity are quantifiable by knowledge.
Other times, their only evidence is… a feeling!
Of coincidence. Or resonance.
Like the thought-provoking quote I discovered on a bank note, which read.. ‘I declare after all that there is no enjoyment like reading.' It was first noticed by my son, who after setting his mind on a new book purchase, happened to retrieve this very note from this piggy bank.
This goes to prove, that while it’s easy to assume that itching the curiosity scratch is a temporary relief. A fleeting satisfaction. The reality is that this assumption is short-sighted.
After all, whoever really ever knows what the aggregate gains of life’s curiosity ‘scavenger hunt’ amount to, either in seemingly-unrelated (yet subtly connected) life choices, or in the silent evolution of mindset and perspective!
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