Theme 63: Curiosity

Curiosity is a tangent.

Creativity takes courage. - Henry Matisse

... we live in an answer culture. We have so much information right at our fingertips all the time ... and the problem with being in an answer culture is it implies there’s a right answer… and there isn’t always.

It takes intentional work to cultivate a culture of enquiry and curiosity.

La creatividad hay que dirigirla hacia algo que vaya a solucionar un problema.

I'm just going to find things that I'm curious about and just go after them because it's worked for me so far.

If they can do it, I can do it

Curiosity is more about helping you filling a patchwork of information about what you already know, it’s about pattern recognition, and connecting the dots between things. So when you’re trying to solve a problem, honing in on those little inklings where you have a hunch, and then building there and following the information, and asking questions that are actually building context around what you already know: that’s what curiosity is.

We are all born hardwired for curiosity. It’s one of the things that’s a drive in us, as a need like hunger or thirst, but the cool thing about curiosity is that there’s no intrinsic reward […] Curiosity is its own reward.

Maybe a fast win gets you somewhere, but if you did a slow win that allows for some different kinds of thinking, it will get you further in the long run.

The problem with being in an answer-culture is that it implies there is a right answer.

The word curiosity actually means to take care.

Hone your hunches.

Ask [questions] as often as you advocate.

Nunca te acuestes sin saber una cosa más. (Y cuando lo encuentres, ponte en marcha).

Los mayores tenéis que volver a tener experiencias reales.

El secreto está en dedicar más tiempo a escuchar el punto de vista del otro que a defender el tuyo

You don’t have to like what is happening but you have to say yes to it. Yes is acceptance.

We need to show up open-minded to find the win-win. If we don’t, we will turn everything into a competition, even when it’s not a competition.

Living ‘yes, and’ allows you to leap and know that the net will appear.

Curiosity didn’t kill the cat—curiosity gave the cat a life. Actually, it gave him nine of them.

We need comedy, we need laughter, we need joy to combat the evil in the world.

There are reasons to feel proud to be human. If we can make art about that, if we can focus on those things, if we can just think about it throughout our day, I think it will change us.

There's a lot of things to be worried about these days, but if you focus on trying to create new things, your curiosity can outgrow your fear.

Hope is built into our species. . . . Why can't we use that more?

I feel like what's being lost in this world is the curiosity to find out and the personal intention to try to figure things out on your own.

Am I really going to wear a business suit and unicorn slippers on stage in front of 300 people? Yeah, why not?!

Imagine a world without curiosity. It would be rather pale, kind of bleak.

I have CreativeMornings to thank for my new-found interest in curiosity, that has been hidden in plain sight for me for a long time

When I was three years old, I distroyed goverment property. Some would blame my parents, and they would be right.

Because the answer is; I can do anything

Definitely get out and have lunch and get away. Because it is very important, it resets your brain. Getting through the trough period—the only way to do that is to get out and go for a walk.

We were no one to decide what is a positive impact. We were no one to decide who gets to inspire people.

Curiosity is often underpinned by a knowledge of the object, so certain which come through, and feeds itself.

Curiosity is different from instinctiveness to just go towards something, or be attracted to something. Curiosity has a sort of basic intent to learn more... or at least learn from the experience.

It's something for us all to think about with our teams, is to really respect people's level of conviction, rather than always strive for consensus.

Working on projects with people I love is what brings value to the projects, to the process, and to me.

How can I use my creativity to help others?

I never dreamt that I was good enough.

I can do this, but what's the backlash? ...what's going to happen? I want to share this, it's a dream project—everyone is going to hate it... And, this felt even better—it made me feel this love from Atlanta. It kept me going. It reminds me everyday, that that curiosity, if it's true, if it's really speaking to you...that I felt that love, that I felt the embrace and I will always be grateful.

The future is crafted by those who do work they don't have to.

If I watch the movements and the breath of a child, that I would be witnessing yoga in it's purest form.

Rome, everytime it can be a different experience, everytime it is a different experience.

Can we learn from the Romans? How do we create sustainable cities today? Can we not have good conversations, productive conversations, as we look at what the romans themselves were doing?

“Everybody can excel – everybody. You can be the underdog and still go whup everybody’s butt. You just have to be curious about wanting to learn and it better be fun. Life’s kinda fun when you’re curious about things.”

Creativity is not just the process of thinking, but it's very much the process of DOING.

Curiosity is the engine that drives creativity of any kind.

The base of every good story is "what if?"

The base of every curiosity is the question—"why?"

I'm interested in the idea that somehow we've convinced ourselves that the best way to answer questions is to think our way through them rather than to feel our way through them, to physically engage our way through them.

If you have questions about who you are, you will find out the answers to those questions in the last minute of a fight...you can't lie to yourself about who you are in the last minute of a fight.

The fundamental experiences we have when we little are the same experiences that drive us when we are older.

I don't think we often honor the journey that immigrants take to America with traits that are positive, right? We tend to honor the desperation and the difficulty, but we don't often ascribe the kind of positive agency that is authentic to their experience.

At the heart of those stories [I write] is a fundamental question, Do the people who I think of as the most deeply related to me, do I fundamentally understand them and to they understand me, you know. And that is at the heart of so many stories.

It's important to rest your body and be forgiving of yourself.

It's so important to take ourselves out of our box and to start testing theories, especially in situations that we're not used to.

Sometimes, you really need to go off the grid.

If you find pieces of wonderful things, put them close to you, so they can give you ideas, so they can start feeding you in every moment in your workspace.

You need to carve out time to think. I schedule an hour a day, turn off the phone, put your computer on airplane mode, and just be curious. What can you wonder about?

Curiosity is a muscle.

Curiosity is also about ideation, investigation, even if it means scrolling through Facebook at 4 am.

The idea that these higher order functions grow out of us as emotions, as feelings, is really sort of a beautiful thing. That curiosity could be as emotive as exhuberance or joy.