I contend that I'm fascinated more by the workings of the mind than any other thing.
The exception is the inner workings of nature in general, that's at the top of the priority list.
For example, take the sun and the moon. From where we stand on Earth, they appear almost identical in size, like cosmic twins drifting in the sky. But in reality, the sun is a freaking giant, hundreds of times bigger than the moon.
How does that happen? Why does the universe play this trick on our eyes? It’s these kind of questions that hooks me and won’t let go. Part of me thinks that it's not merely a coincidence, but who knows, really?
Being relentlessly curious has its downside too. In the sense that, you'll fall off wandering through a forest, so absorbed by the trees that you don’t notice the cliff until you’re halfway down.
For me, the recent example of this was meeting with an acquaintance. I inadvertently turned a casual conversation into a deep exploration about their worldview, as in their beliefs, their reasoning, the why behind it all. This took hours of my time, unintentionally.
When I took a step back, I wondered where this curiosity came from as it wasn't present in the way I was raised.
Growing up, questions weren’t exactly encouraged. “Because I said so” was the default, not explanations.
The fall of the cliff part is when I realized that people can live within the same vicinity and have vastly different worldviews.
Which could mean that environment only plays a supporting role or rather our surroundings are just a backdrop, not the director, of our beliefs.
This can also be reconciled with the fact that we're all unreliable narrators of our own stories. The experiences we emphasize and the ones we forget create our worldviews more than the objective reality of what happened.
Also, as humans, we have innate need to belong to tribes. An effect of that is some of our beliefs could be unconsciously adopted to strengthen our bonds with certain groups rather than from individual reasoning.
I think it goes without saying that this kind of realization has changed a bit how I approach future conversations.
I'll be more careful now, more aware that what seems self-evident to me might be foreign territory to someone else, even someone who walks the same streets I do.
On a broader view, if proximity doesn't guarantee shared understanding, then what hope do we have for bridging divides between people separated by geography, culture, or language?
Of course, this is not another fall of the cliff type of curiosity to dwell on right now.
But I think it’s worth pondering upon, even though one can make the argument that the loud noise of our differences simply cancels out the signal/quite truths we share.
Thanks for reading!! Share your thoughts below on the comments.
