The Context S02E18: Nurturing Curiosity
Channel: David Orban
Date: 30/05/2020

We have to maintain and nurture the curiosity we naturally exhibited as children. Even if we are bombarded by messages that want us to conform, from schools that impose uniform behaviors and learning rhythms, to workplaces that put us in specific boxes both physically and in measuring our inputs, our individuality and the different ways that it can flourish, are important and enriching, not only to ourselves, but to society as a whole.

The ability to explore and to ask questions is innate, but it can be strengthened. The tools of enquiry evolve to serve us beyond the years of our childhood. Everything can be interesting, and can represent a path of development, and of interconnected threads of discovery.

Each component of our civilization is changing, and the acquired wisdom is itself subject to revision. It is worth asking if what we assumed to be true is still valid, or if we need to update our assumptions and the set of actions that are triggered by them.

Technologies that were immature, and we assumed could not serve us, may have reached important new milestones, and our rediscovering them unlocks new unexpected potentials.

Electric cars, or photovoltaic cells are an example of this. Already we could decide in the ‘90s, 30 years ago, that they were not worth it. And at that time we may have very well been right! But today we must be curious in verifying what is the updated reality of these technologies. Only this way we can find out, that they have vastly improved, and now represent economically superior solutions that are environmentally sound.

There are many other possible examples of healthy curiosity questioning acquired wisdom, and refounding the assumptions that allow the redesigning complex systems that constitute our civilization.

#nurturing #curiosity #technology