Let’s stop trying to be so productive all the time and make an effort to be more curious.*
(Rob Walker)

What if it was the case that the world revealed whatever goodness it contains in precise proportion to your desire for the best?**
(Jordan Peterson)

Curiosity brings light.

Light is a servant; it does not bring attention to itself but to all it gives its light to.

Attention is the companion of curiosity, energy brought to what we are noticing:

Attention is like energy in that without it no work can be done and in doing work it is dissipated. We create ourselves by how we invest this energy.^

When we pay attention we are bringing our particular light.

Alacrity is attention, energy that does not necessarily know what it will discover.

Each person’s alacrity is different, the make-up of their energy, their light, shaped by their curiosity. This is their flamboyance – their blazing, their flaming:

A “flamboyant” worker, exuberant and excited, is willing to risk control over his or her work: machines break down when they lose control, whereas people make discoveries, stumble on happy accidents.^^

What is all this light all about?

Enlightenment.

Wisdom.

We need a wiser world.

We need illuminators, not extinguishers.

(*From Rob Walker’s The Art of Noticing.)
(**From Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life.)
(^From Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow.)
(^^From Richard Sennett’s The Craftsman.)