Encouraging Curiosity
August 18, 2020•286 words
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Hey! This is Issue #14 of my old newsletter, published December 2019, enjoy!
I consider myself a naturally curious person. I read quite a lot, have hundreds of books in my house, listen to different podcasts, discuss & debate a lot, both with myself and with others. Of course, there are times when I'd like to be even more curious than I actually am.
I've been thinking a lot about the current state of the world recently. Not politically, but knowledge-wise. The world, and especially my country (Poland) have improved drastically in the past couple of decades. People think about which high-paying job should they take, not about what they'll eat for dinner that day (in the sense that food is not an issue for most now). HDI, GDP PPP & other metrics are the highest they've ever been. We're always better than we've been last year. Poland was the only major EU country not to take a hit in the 2008 crash.
Yet people are becoming less curious. We are reading less books. In fact, reading has been steadily declining during the last twenty-five years. We prefer to spend hours and hours on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok & others instead of gaining powerful knowledge.
My primary goal in life is helping others. One of the ways I'm trying to contribute to that goal is encouraging people to be more curious. Participating in discussions, recommending & giving books, asking provocative questions are some of the amazing ways in which we can try to "move" folks around us.
Almost no one has to spend their entire day thinking about pure survival. So why not use that free time to make the world a better, wiser place?