Too little
Closing the subject
I cannot see why anyone enjoys this.
Unfamiliarity becomes a verdict before there has been a question.
Curiosity
The car on the screen has found a wall. There may be another button.
A settled desire to understand rather than remain content with unexamined assumptions.
Curiosity wants to understand what is not yet familiar. Experience gives you much to bring to a conversation; it does not remove the pleasure of asking a real question. A younger person may know this particular world better, just as you may know another.
Curiosity gives a fresh question inside a familiar life
You join a cooperative game with a younger adult. Your little vehicle has been resting its nose against a wall for some time. “What does this button do?” is a more useful contribution than a speech about games in your day. Your companion shows you the reverse control. The wall has taught all it can; there is a whole course left to explore.
Finding the balance in Curiosity
An illustrative everyday situation
Ask a younger game partner to explain a control instead of dismissing an unfamiliar activity.
A fitting response
Wanting to understand
What are you trying to do here?
The other person can explain what makes the activity interesting.
Pursued too far
Demanding a demonstration
Now explain every part until I am satisfied.
An invitation to share turns into an obligation to instruct.
A good question gives another person something they can choose to share.
When the situation changes
If the activity is not enjoyable or the explanation is tiring, stop. Curiosity does not require mastering every device, accepting intrusive technology or keeping up with every fashion.
What Curiosity makes possible
A new interest can give two people a way to meet beyond their usual roles. You need not be impressed by everything you learn. Understanding what someone values is worthwhile even when you prefer another pastime.
Curiosity in ordinary life
A local mural
A style you do not recognize appears on a nearby wall. Read the artist’s account if available before assuming that you already know what the work is trying to do.
An unfamiliar job
Ask someone what a normal working day involves. Leave room for the unglamorous answer, and for them not to want to discuss work.
Nearby virtues, different work
Humility
Humility admits a limit in your knowledge; Curiosity makes that limit worth exploring.
Discernment
Curiosity gathers possibilities; Discernment considers what deserves confidence or further time.
Curiosity and its counterfeits
Counterfeit: Keeping up for display
Collecting fashionable terms can imitate Curiosity while avoiding any admission of uncertainty. Genuine interest permits a basic question.
Counterfeit: Intrusion
Demanding personal explanations can look inquisitive. Curiosity respects privacy and a person’s freedom to decline.
How to cultivate Curiosity
Ask about one specific feature rather than evaluating the whole activity.
Let someone explain in their own terms.
Notice whether you want understanding or a chance to deliver a verdict.
Try it today
Ask one welcome question about an unfamiliar ordinary interest. Listen for what the person enjoys, and let them decide how much to share.
In later life
Ask a real question about an unfamiliar world.
Questions worth returning to
What have I dismissed before understanding it?
Could this person surprise me without having to persuade me?
Keep the practice proportionate
You may decline an activity or protect your privacy. Nobody owes a demonstration, personal history or access to their device.
About these practices · DisclaimerQuotations and further reading
Seven selections to return to through the week. Follow a source link to read the surrounding passage.
Nay, do not some even add to their stock of learning?
Cato makes room for learning in later life. The invitation is an opportunity, not a requirement to remain impressive.
ever to learn something from the information of those with whom I confer (which is the best school of all others)
Montaigne describes learning through conversation. A younger companion may be the person who knows this particular subject best.
Give thyself leisure to learn some good thing, and cease roving and wandering to and fro.
Marcus Aurelius · Meditations · Book II, IV · Meric Casaubon translation · excerpt
Marcus makes room for chosen learning. One real question can be enough; the page does not demand constant improvement.
I took Cocker’s book of Arithmetick, and went through the whole by myself with great ease.
Franklin returns to a subject that had defeated him at school. An earlier difficulty need not close a later opportunity to learn.
The principal use of reading to me is, that by various objects it rouses my reason, and employs my judgment, not my memory.
Montaigne values the activity a new subject awakens. Curiosity can be a fresh encounter rather than a test of how much you retain.
It must be hospitable and ready for experiment.
Addams describes the settlement’s need to remain open. The same modest readiness can make an unfamiliar activity worth trying.
As we play’d pretty equally, we thus beat one another into that language.
Franklin and a friend attach language exercises to their chess games. Learning can have companionship and play in it, rather than becoming a performance of competence.
Continue exploring
Take these ideas into everyday life
Read freely, follow the thirteen-virtue program, or adapt this collection in My Virtues. Health and independence do not measure your worth.