…curiosity killed the cat and satisfaction brought him back. If my cat is any indication, I certainly hope she has nine lives. I’m happy with my one – although I want to keep it and my curiosity alive, thank you very much. Curiosity killed the cat? Where does that really leave us curious types? I’ve been thinking a great deal about curiosity and where it leads. Yes, you could say…I’m curious.

Curiosity is defined as, commonly, the desire to “know.” Yet, curiosity does not necessarily arise when someone doesn’t know something. There is an impetus, a will to understand, well – more. It doesn’t seem to be rooted in simple ignorance. If that were the case, would anyone be ignorant at all? Or rather, would people STAY ignorant? No, there’s something more that drives us to “know.”

I want to know what it is. Really.

To be interested is to what to see the differences. It’s a desire, passion, lust – what have you – to see what makes something work differently than we work or think or do. Curiosity is not beset with intense feeling, per se, but with simple desire to know more. To grow our body of knowledge so that we become “better,” if there would be meaning there, than before. Better is so subjective but let us, for the sake of argument, say that better means an increase in our usefulness in the world. To “know” more gives us an edge, it allows us to survive longer, stronger, and leaner than we might have without the knowledge.

Ah, but this isn’t the basis for curiosity, is it? Is curiosity the simple desire to be better so that we survive or live “better?” I don’t think so. I think that curiosity arises in some people just like the desire to swim or the taste for chocolate. It’s unique and a total personality trait. Can one develop curiosity? I suppose, for a while. Yet, I know people who would rather not know than know. “Ignorance is bliss” was not invented by a curious person. Someone also said “the cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.” How true.

“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.” Thank you, Albert.

–TDD