Day 358 – My definition of curiosity revisited

Seven posts to go after this one. As I start the countdown I’d like to take a look at my definition again. At the beginning, I defined curiosity thus: A state of experiencing a situation, with any or all of one’s senses, with openness and a desire to see what happens and without feeling the need to influence the outcome.

At some point along the way, I questioned the use of the word “state” wondering if “attitude” or something else might work better. Today I look at that definition and find it works well for me.

I think curiosity is a state of being, rather than something else. I like the idea that it speaks to and uses all our senses. Perhaps the one thing is that I would now add that it speaks to and uses our cognitive functions, like thinking, learning, and analyzing, as well. The openness has been a major part of my quest from the beginning and the “desire to learn” expresses for me the active component that is one of the differences between mindfulness and curiosity for me. As to not feeling the need to influence the outcome—I have come to feel that this is not only a component, say, of existential curiosity but also the other kinds of curiosity I identified for myself: mindful, interpersonal, and desire-to-learn curiosity.

For me, my definition has worn well.

Day 343 – Eating anchovies

A couple of years ago I did a course in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). One of the mindfulness exercises was eating a raisin mindfully, which was fine for me because I like raisins. One person though had long had an aversion to raisins and was skeptical about the benefit of eating even one raisin. He reported afterwards that it wasn’t as bad as he had expected. Apparently, using all his senses and seeing the raisin as an exercise helped him.

Well, we are having Salade Nicoise for lunch, which has anchovies in it. In the spirit of curiosity practice, I ate an anchovy mindfully, even though I’m the kind of person who doesn’t even want someone else’s pizza half with anchovies on it in the same carton as my half with other things. I decided to look at the situation as a chance to practice curiosity, to remain open and not judge. I focused on what I tasted rather than what my opinion was of what I tasted. The anchovy was just as salty and fishy as I remembered and it wasn’t a great pleasure to eat it, but approaching it that way did help.

Day 340 – Paying attention

Today, after the bear sighting yesterday, I noticed that I walked outside the house in a completely different mode than usual. I wasn’t afraid, but I was alert and simply paying attention, openly and without trying to influence the outcome. It struck me this was pretty close to my definition of curiosity. 

Day 331 – Interpersonal curiosity and teaching

One thing I’m realizing this week is how often I actually do practice interpersonal curiosity and openness in the classroom. That is a really nice realization for me. I seem to go into a special mode where I wait to see what the person means and ask really good questions to find out more (even if they aren’t classic Inquiry questions). For the time being, I’m satisfied with that, even if I don’t transfer that openness to my life outside the classroom as often as I would wish.

Day 329 – More listening with interest

Clearly, I am going to be practicing a lot of this kind of curiosity this week. With only two participants–and two participants who do not want to work in a pair but rather want my input and attention all the time–there hardly seems to be another way. But they are pleasant and willing and experienced so at least what I’m listening to is teaching me something.

Day 328 – Listening with interest is also a form of curiosity

Listening with interest is also a form of curiosity, and it is one I practiced intensively today. I tend to forget that it should count as curiosity practice because I have been doing it most of my life.

Day 321 – At least I was open

The course I’m teaching this week is being visited by members of the human resources department. That is not an entirely stress-free proposition, and I wasn’t sure what to make of the decision on the side of the project sponsor. I’m proud of myself that I remained open, didn’t jump to any conclusions, and I feel that helped me be constructive. It also helps that they themselves are constructive participants, but I’m still proud of myself.

Day 317 – A rushed day and still …

My work day started at about 7:00 this morning and proceeded without a break to about 1 p.m. at which point I had a bite to eat and went out with my dog. I got an awful lot of work done, but it was pretty intense. Then I came back for a conference call and the follow up associated with that.

Still, on our walk I managed to notice the mushrooms(!) that have sprouted in the park after just a few days of rain following on a very dry spell, and I noticed as we walked past a sidewalk café that most people were speaking English instead of German, although often with an Austrian accent. It may not have been curiosity exactly (I wasn’t rushing home to my mushroom field guide to find out what kind of mushrooms they were), but it suggests at least to me that I am learning to pay attention better. 🙂

Day 310 – Experimenting

Today, belatedly, I realized that curiosity is an essential ingredient in doing experiments, and experiments are a perfect opportunity to practice curiosity. The very attitude we have when running an experiment–will this work or not, what outcome will we get–fits at least my definition of curiosity. A true experiment is trying something and waiting to see what comes out.

It’s possible to do some things like trying out a new recipe, which some people might describe as “an experiment”, without really experimenting, that is, while still being wedded to a certain outcome (and creating a certain amount of stress for oneself).

This morning I got into the streetcar and sat down before I realized why my favorite seat was still free. There was a man in the next row ranting, I never did really find out why. I was about to change seats and then I remembered something my first Tai Chi teacher told me–that the energy of being centered can calm people down around you. He cited an example from his own life about an argument in his office where he succeeded at calming the people down without saying a word, simply by sinking into the basic centered Tai Chi position. I thought I’d like to try that and started a breathing exercise to center myself. In the course of the breathing and centering, I realized that I was truly experimenting. If it didn’t work, it was no skin off my nose. I wanted to see what it was like to try and what might come out of it.

I did a pretty good but not great job of centering myself. I can’t say it affected the man in the next row, though, and he got off after about five minutes so it was a rather short experiment. But it was interesting. And it was curiosity lived.

Day 308 – In support of my hypothesis

I don’t know what happened when I went out this afternoon with my dog–partly, I think, there just wasn’t that much going on in the park and on the street–but I relaxed and walked along with open eyes and an open mind. And, lo and behold, that state of mind (close to what I am calling curiosity):

• Reduced my stress
• Set me up to be more responsive and therefore more effective
• Helped me build better connections to the people I passed
• Contributed to my enjoyment of life

Just as I hypothesized so long ago. Hallelujah! 🙂