Curiousity

A playful mind is inquisitive, and learning is fun. If you indulge your natural curiosity and retain a sense of fun in new experience, I think you'll find it functions as a sort of shock absorber for the bumpy road ahead.

Pay attention. What do you see that no one else sees? A word. A feeling. An aesthetic. Do you notice fonts all around you- on neon signs, and restaurant awnings? Do you notice colors? Do you feel taste? Do you pause to appreciate a shot in a movie that no one else cares about? Your edge is often at what you notice, and the world ignores.

I know that if you are not unusually hard-working or competitive or smart, you can still distinguish yourself. Be unusual in some other noticeable, likable way—unusually honest, brave, generous, curious, or pleasant. All of these attributes are composed of discrete behaviors that can be learned through practice.

Solitude is desirable for the freedom it gives you. Distanced from social demands, you can simply follow the wishes of your heart. It’s like an extensive, eyes-open meditation.

Honeybees exhibit random exploratory behavior when foraging for nectar and pollen, and so do bats that forage for fruits. Plants disperse their seeds through the wind in random patterns. This randomness increases the likelihood that seeds will land in a suitable environment for germination and growth. Our own genes continue to mutate randomly,... See more

If you ever want to find out just how uninteresting you really are, get a job where the quality and frequency of your thoughts determine your livelihood. I've found that the only way I can keep writing every day, year after year, is to let my mind wander into new territories. To do that, I've had to cultivate a kind of mental playfulness.

“The beauty of curiosity and being present is that it allows you to turn the constellation of dots in your mind into paths you can access , and that’s a competitive advantage over other people.

The point being: Looking closely is valuable at every scale. From looking closely at a sentence, a photograph, a building, a government. It scales and it cascades — one cognizant detail begets another and then another. Suddenly you’ve traveled very far from that first little: Huh.

I’d say that that huh is the foundational block of curiosity. To get... See more