Improve Your Curiosity Muscle

More and more I’m fascinated by what I don’t know. It’s been said the further from the shore the deeper the water. It’s the same with knowledge. The more the tide of knowledge pulls me from the shore of what is known the deeper the waters of what I don’t know are found.

Why don’t more people set sail? It really is a shame. We humans are the highest level of thinkers on the planet. We are the only animal that seeks to manipulate mood and well-being. A cow just stands and eats. If it’s cold it just endures the cold. The cow is never concerned with learning to stay warm or how to live longer or how to think quicker. 

Those higher level states of consciousness are reserved for the human species. However, so many of us waste our minds and ability to learn and grow. We just take one day from the next for granted. Then we end up with achy bones, a foggy brain, poor lung capacity and finally death. Why?

I have set the motto for my podcast and for that matter my life to improve always in ALL ways. This isn’t some trip in vanity. In fact I’m currently reading Ecclesiastes in my morning Bible study. The author writes frequently about how so much of life is vanity. It’s a chasing of the wind. However, the very nature of the book is an account of the ponderings of reportedly the wisest man to have ever lived, King Solomon. 

So way back in the times of antiquity the wisest man alive sat down and tried to reconcile the nature of things and why they were. 

Take a look at Albert Einstein. It’s easy to dismiss him as someone who just had a big brain. He was a genius and that’s that. However, Einstein once said, 

“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when one contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvellous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries to comprehend only a little of this mystery every day.”

Here is my point. Instead of looking in the mirror and telling ourselves, “I’m fat,” why don’t more people ask, “How did this happen? What are the ramifications and how can I change it? How does my body really work? Is it my mind that’s contributing to this? Is it the people I’m around? Is it possible there’s more to my weight gain than just my gaping maw having Blue Bell ice cream shoved in it every night?”

I encourage you to get curious. Your mind and my mind, rather the brain is a truly remarkable piece of hardware. It can actually be grown. Meditation and deep thought cause the brain to grow. Did you know the prefrontal cortex of the human brain has grown by approximately 40% since the time of cavemen? Why is this? We started making tools. Tools and their use to make things, to create things and to truly separate ourselves from the rest of the animal kingdom caused our brains to grow.

In Steve Kotler and Jamie Wheal’s book “Stealing Fire” they sum it up pretty well.

“..the human brain remains the most complex machine on the planet. At the center of this complexity lies the prefrontal cortex, our most sophisticated piece of neuronal hardware. With this relatively recent evolutionary adaptation came a heightened degree of self-awareness, an ability to delay gratification, plan for the long term, reason through complex logic, and think about our thinking.”

Please, for a better you, for a better community for a better race of humans: get curious. Use this most complex of machines on the planet which we all possess.

Note-This rant was inspired by a video by Jason Silva that can be seen HERE. I highly encourage you to check it out. It’s short and sweet but packs a punch.