Curious: The Desire to Know and Why Your Future Depends On It

Diversive curiosity follows no particular process or method, but slides from one novel object of attention to the next.

When we know nothing about a subject, we find it hard to engage our brains, either because we can’t imagine finding it interesting or because we’re intimidated by the prospect of starting to learn about something that might, by its scale or complexity, defeat us.

But in a complex world, it’s impossible to know what might be useful in the future. It’s important, therefore, to spread our cognitive bets. Curious people take risks,

Nobody is born Catholic or Protestant, Eskimo or Bedouin. Your sense of identity, of being a person, is formed by the cultural knowledge you learn, first from your parents and then from others.

If you are high in NFC, you are probably good at solving problems for your employer, because you’re really solving them for yourself.

Diversive curiosity can be a strength, leading people to take in more from their environment. But it can quickly become aimless, distracting, and frustrating.

Diversive curiosity is where the hunt for knowledge begins, in the desire for new information, sensations, experiences, and challenges. But it’s only a beginning. If there’s something oddly familiar about Burke’s description, that’s probably because it might be used to describe the way we often use the Internet: clicking from link to link, searchin

We are part biological organism, part cultural; we need both sunlight and knowledge to thrive.

Diversive curiosity makes us want to know what lies on the other side of the mountain; epistemic curiosity arms us with the knowledge we need to survive when we get there.