It’s hard to remain curious when it takes us outside our comfort bubble.
And it usually does.
Like a holiday, it’s great to explore some new country or city, but eventually we want to go home.
Yet some of the most astonishing stuff we get up to as a species is when we make this journey, leaving the familiar behind in order to explore.
When we are prepared to do this, we find we are able to travel further, faster.
“‘Yes and’ isn’t a technique. It’s a way of life.”*
The familiar can include our ideas and thinking and roles and positions, as well as our possessions
Old lizard brain (our amygdala) tells us we can’t live without these things, but, if we can connect with our more developed brain, we realise we can imagine and produce some awesomeness with the people we meet: those waiting to encounter people like us.
There is an art to learn here, disciplines to adhere to, a way to walk: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi warns:
‘The rebirth of creativity doesn’t last long, unless we enjoy begin curious.’**
We must continually invent ways to be curiously persevering and perseveringly curious.
Which is, of course, what it means to be Human.
(*Cathy Salit, quoted in Daniel Pink’s To Sell is Human.)
(**From Csikszentmihalyi’s Creativity.)
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