---
title: "Curiosity: The Age of Wonderment"
description: "An early talk on curiosity, which Rahim counts among the essential traits of high achievers."
author: "Rahim Rasul"
type: "Podcast episode"
series: "Halftime Talks"
episode: 11
published: "2014-02-10"
duration: "13 min"
theme: "Questions and learning"
tags: "curiosity, wonder, learning, childhood"
audio: "https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/rahimrasul/HTT_011_-_Curiosity_-__Wonderment.mp3?dest-id=175061"
url: "https://iloveprocess.com/halftime/curiosity-the-age-of-wonderment/"
site: "I Love Process"
---

# Curiosity: The Age of Wonderment

_An early talk on curiosity, which Rahim counts among the essential traits of high achievers._

**The question:** Are you bored with the world?

Listen: https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/rahimrasul/HTT_011_-_Curiosity_-__Wonderment.mp3?dest-id=175061

## Before you listen

What is curiosity, and why is it important? This episode looks at the idea and its impact on our daily behavior. The word has a Latin root in cura, care. It is an eagerness to learn and a thirst for knowledge, and a search for something that will remedy that thirst.

Curiosity is always self-initiated. Something around us may spark it, but the quest is ours. Children have it from birth, in the terrible twos and the endless why. Somewhere along the way we lose sight of the magic. We look at a sunset, forget that our planet is orbiting a sun, and just call it sky. Once you realize you are curious, it takes on a life of its own.

Listen for the turn near the close, from what curiosity is to how to wake it up. It begins in small places. We have to question things more, and once the fire is lit, it is still ours to fan.

## From the talk

> If curiosity killed the cat, then I'm lucky to be alive.
>
> You are no longer cast into the wind of chance, and happenstance. You become the mover in your life.
>
> It is not a gift that can be bequeathed. It is a fire that can be lit.

## Sit with this

- How do we spark that desire to be more curious?
- What could I do to take this to a level that it's never been taken before?
- How do you connect with that curiosity?

## Transcript

This week, we're going to be focusing on the subject of curiosity, and we're going to explore every day of the week into different aspects of the topic to bring it all together. And today's topic, we're going to be talking about that sense of wonderment. We're going to be going over a tertiary a general basis of the idea, the meaning of value, the benefit, the reward of curiosity, and why I believe curiosity is one of the essential traits of high achievers. So to begin this episode, I want to I want to give several quotes on Curiosity from notable figures do our history. Zora Neale Hurston says "research is formalized curiosity. It's poking and prying with a purpose." William Arthur Ward said "curiosity is the wake in a candle of learning." Antonole France "the whole art of teaching is only the art of wakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards." Albert Einstein says "the important thing is not to stop questioning.

Curiosity has its own reason for existing" .And to close it out, I want to say a blue Tark quote, that said the mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled. Amazing. If curiosity killed the cat, then I'm lucky to be alive. I'm going to begin with the definition of curious. It obviously has a Latin origin. So if you know me by now, I love to examine the etymology of words. And I would say it's an eagerness to learn and it's a thirst for knowledge. It has a Latin origin, cura and OUs. So cure is to care and owe us is that possession of the full possession of care. So being careful, right? And cure also has an origin to the word cure.

So cure is looking for a solution looking for something that will remedy that thirst, right. So that's the origin of curiosity. Another thing about curiosity that I find fascinating that it's always self initiated. While there may be things in our environment that act as the catalyst to why we are curious, it is our undertaking, it is our personal quest, no matter how much it may benefit a community. It is our desire for more it is an inner passion, it is an inner flame that ends up consuming itself, when we actually acquire the knowledge we're in pursuit of. The inherent value of curiosity is a mind that looks at the world in a sense of wonderment; a sense of how is this possible; a sense of why are we capable of doing what we're doing right now?

The value of curiosity is that we're able to look into our world and find and look for relationships with ourselves, our environment, our community, our world, our Flora & Fauna. Our world at large is something that we're looking to create these tighter connections and relationships with. At the basis of curiosity, are a few variables which allow it to even exist. One of the variables that allow curiosity to exist is freedom. Now, we take it for granted how much freedom we have to actually question the rules and our place in the world to actually question what exactly we're doing. Curiosity implies a level of freedom to question and consider a bigger, broader, more expansive possibility than exist right now. Another aspect, especially in our modern time, which facilitates curiosity is access to resources, access to information, not always having to dig it out, and be the initiator and the primal mover on an idea.

There's an amazing thing that happens when you become aware of the fact that you are curious. Once you realize that you're curious, it takes on a different world a life of its own. You are no longer cast into the wind of chance, and happenstance. You become the mover in your life, realizing that there is nothing that I can't figure out. While you may tread on the roads once taken by others, the value of curiosity is that you are pushing this world into another place by your ideas, regardless of the fact that you may even come to conclusions that have already been made outside of your realm of access. Curiosity itself is woven into our human genetic system. We look at the world through a sense of wonderment.

From birth, we look at our parents, we look at other children as they look at us and see the magic that somehow we have become blind to. That magic begins when you have all these giants and magical things that are new to being new to this earth. We are curious about walking so much that we want to imitate. We are curious about speaking, we want to imitate. That curiosity is the launching pad for what we term as a young age, those terrible twos. Those terrible twos lead to the age old philosophical question a child asks, Why? Why? Why? We get annoyed by it, but we fail sometimes to see the depth of the question. Why is this the way it is? So what is it to be curious, so why should we seek out that that trait of curiosity.

Because it becomes our lifeblood of possibility. It is the nectar of youthfulness. As you drink upon the nectar of curiosity, no matter what subject it is, it gives you life. It is one of the pillars of the fountain of youth, not necessarily the physiology youth, but the psychology of the youth. We want to know more. We want to know how. We want to know more expansive possibilities of our nature, our world and our self. As we look at our youth and they become enamored by being able to play with a piece of paper, where we lost sight of that magic. We look at sunsets and lose sight of the fact that we're orbiting around a sun and the moon is orbiting around us and our planet is part of a solar system.

Yet we just call it sky. Curiosity asks and begs us with a sense of eagerness and passion. Why is this dead? It is that wonderment which is the basis of philosophy itself. Curiosity opens possibilities. How do we spark that desire to be more curious? It begins in small places. We have to question things more. We have to look within ourselves and ask ourselves - what could I do to take this to a level that it's never been taken before? It's natural as a child to do it. It's natural as a child to play with a simple wooden toy and see the world or watch that cartoon 1000 times. They're entertained so easily, easily, because they haven't become bored with the world. Are you bored with the world?

And if you are, how do we wake you up? How do you connect with that curiosity? How do you begin to see the world to that sense of wonderment and possibility? It starts in small places and builds that momentum up until it is that avalanche of passion. Because at the heart of curiosity, as I'll say it again, is eagerness, eagerness to know, an eagerness to figure out and somebody outside of yourself can't give you that eagerness. It is not a gift that can be bequeathed. It is a fire that can be lit. But yet, you still have to fan it and grow the flame in order to know what hasn't been known before to yourself. So I submit to you again, in closing that curiosity is that burning flame and thirst for knowledge.

Okay. Thanks Get on iTunes right now, before you do anything else. And leave us a comment on iTunes in the podcast. Leave us a comment, rate us share it. Go through our notes and get our social media links for Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, come to our website, check us out, leave your email so you can join our correspondents list. And go ahead and tell everybody the more who knows, the more we grow. And we can't wait to grow and openness podcast out to a bigger, broader, more expansive audience. So go ahead and sell everybody. And last but not least as I say, stay inspired find that place of inspiration and sit back engaging, multiply expanding, be curious, just like this episode was about and witness the unfolding of infinite possibility.