Be Curious

Curiosity might have killed the cat, but it might as well save us

As I mentioned before in the About Me post, I have always been in search of answers to my questions. The things that sparked my curiosity (and sometimes even kept me up at night) were not the things you usually talk over a coffee about or get taught in school of, so I decided to venture in this world one step at a time, mostly on my own.

My journey in philosophy, religion and psychology started from the questions I had as well as from the staggeringly true and harsh statements people, some more renowned than others, had made throughout history. Coming up are a few representative quotes I wrote in my journal a few years ago that still come up in my mind once in a while, feeling the need to share them with you as well:

• The awful thing is that beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and the devil are fighting there, and the battlefield is the heart of man.

  - Fyodor Dostoevsky
• People are strange: They are constantly angered by trivial things, but on a major matter like totally wasting their lives, they hardly seem to notice.

  We're all going to die, what a circus! that alone should make us love each other, yet it doesn't. We are terrorised and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing.

  - Charles Bukowski
• A man can do what he wills, but cannot will what he wills.

  - Arthur Schopenhauer
• Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

  - Oscar Wilde
• The search for reality is the most dangerous of all undertakings, for it destroys the world in which you live.

  - Nisargadatta Maharaj

These quotes, as well as many others, served as the bridge between me and the "outside world of thought". I didn't know much at that time, and it seemed obvious to me to try to learn even more, to dig deeper. It also seemed strange that no matter the era or the part of the world these authors represented, they seemed to have much in common in some pretty important aspects.

Much reading and thinking later, I realised...

...they tried to answer their questions too. To make sense of it all. They were all curious, just as I was and still am. This is what they did best and had most in common, what made each one spectacular in their field. It was not about their achievements, but living their life going further than ever before, constantly facing the unknown.

Of course, this is one of the easier-said-than-done endeavours and, obviously, it's not pleasant. Discovering harsh truths, laid out as bare facts from people you admire for their ability to penetrate, by thought alone, the substrata of the world and soul takes its toll on anybody eventually. Yet I consider it to be the most rewarding one I commited to in my life, for it grounded me in myself, opening my eyes to the whole world and the mystery of it.

This does not mean I answered all my questions by taking in as much truth as I could handle. I started questioning even more! Seems like a bad trade-off in the end...

Well, not really. I realised how much I don't know about, how much there still is to discover. The questions may not have gone away, but they became better articulated, regarding greater and greater matters. Also, I became more confident, understanding and loving; capable of listening, feeling and reasoning like never before. I became able to help others by entertaining deeper and deeper discussions about any subject it came to.

And the best part? This process keeps on going on and on and on. Looking back even only a few weeks ago, I can proudly tell how wrong I was in some regards, how much of what I thought I knew was nowhere near right. For me, there's no better feeling; and such I propose a final quote, one that stands at the pinnacle of my principles and represents the definition of evolution and personal growth:

So, my friend, be a fool. Be as curious as you can, willing to bravely and carelessly pursue anything you set your mind to. This pursuit is your reward, and there is none greater.