Do you remember what it was like experience life for the first time? I don't either. (I know my elementary school music teacher could remember her birth, so I'm sure there are people who remember certain things vividly. I am not one of those people. I don't think many people are.) I imagine there was a lot of curiosity involved in having brand new experiences all the time. I don't spend time with children, so I don't have fun stories or examples of raw curiosity in action. I can only speculate that children, young children, see the world as a place to learn and explore.
While you may feel you do the same, I would argue that you do not put your hand on a hot stove (on purpose) to see what would happen. You are very aware of the dangers of large untamed animals. You would not eat all the candy you could until you couldn't anymore (I admit I assume on this one, but you know the consequences). You've learned a thing or two about the world. So on some level you've stopped being curious about some things. You are no longer curious about what a dog would do if you pulled her tail. You are no longer curious about what a shoe is. You know things. And because you know things, you don't need to reacquaint yourself with all of those things. That would be going backwards and going backwards is not the direction you want to go.
But I know from personal experience that we need a little bit of that curiosity. We don't need it to survive. We can eat the same thing each day, take the same route to work, drive the same speed we always do, go to the same job, talk to the same people. We can live on autopilot and survive. Physical survival is important. But what about mental and emotional survival. With television and social media, mental and emotional survival becomes that much more challenging to obtain.
It's easy to fall into a routine that we didn't create.
We don't always pick habits designed to enhance our lives. We pick activities that will pass the time quickly and get us to the next day without too much effort. We scroll instagram watching other people share the best moments of their lives. We scroll Netflix or Amazon Prime so we don't have to think anymore. I love a good movie or documentary or tv series. But I will admit that there are loads of times when I watch it in the background as I'm doing another activity (like texting or doing laundry or scrolling the socials). We eat to try to satisfy our soul rather than our stomach. And maybe I'm just talking about me. Maybe I'm the lone wolf in these situations and I ought to pull myself together. Maybe it's not as bad as it seems.
There are many people who live with curiosity and joy and wonder and I want what they have. But, my lack of motivation coupled with my desire to have something I don't have, kind of gets me swimming in circles.
So, in order to preserve and restore what childhood curiosity, imagination, and wonder that is left in me, since adulthood stomped most of it out, I've taken up this blog-posting habit (which I plan to keep around, but based on my track record of sticking with consistent blog-posting, I'm not optimistic about it's continuation). In addition, I'm considering a short story writing habit as well. I want to get to the roots of my curiosity where it's okay to create silly things. I want to paint and take pictures and write random things for the sake of imagination and curiosity. I understand you could make money off of anything. I don't really care. Maybe it will lead to something big hah. But more likely this will all lead to the rediscovery of my curious mind, which is much much more valuable.
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