Asking questions, getting answers
Experimentation is open to all. When small children constantly ask questions, the adults in their lives sometimes feel like they have to provide all the answers, but it is probably just as useful in a young person’s development if he or she is encouraged to find out the answers for his or herself. High quality education should aim to instill a never ending habit of wanting to find out about things.
Even in the days before I could take internet access for granted, I would always want to conduct research before visiting anywhere I hadn’t been to before. Library reference books were my main source of information way back then.
One of the lessons I have learnt relatively late in life is that curiosity is not an impulse everyone dares to act upon. This probably accounts for a lot of the banality in creative output nowadays.
Listening to a lot of modern country and western oriented radio while spending time in the USA is a good example of this. The music could be performed beautifully, but more often than not, hearing the sentiments expressed in the song lyrics brings to mind a feeling that those thoughts came from folks with insular mindsets.
Wanting to know as much as possible about the human condition doesn’t make one person better than another who is not interested, but I know who I would prefer to spend time with if I had to choose.
