We Did Not Know What Was Coming Series: Curiosity — A Quality of Light
PREFACE: To say the last seven years have been a journey of growth for me and this country is an understatement. To help me process and cope with the roller-coaster of emotions I have felt these years, I started writing on Medium right after the 2016 election. My last series ended December 31, 2020, after Biden won the presidential election.
Recently I realized I missed writing “in my journal” and decided to go back to the very beginning and re-read my essays. I wanted to see where I started out on November 9, 2016, and where I am now. I decided to repost my favorite blogs with a short present-day commentary and continue onto current times.
I hope a few of you will join me on this journey of recollection, reflection, and learning. Little did we know what we were headed into.
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Curiosity — A Quality of Light: Dec 1, 2016
When I started writing these essays, I opened with reflections on the shadow emotions we carry individually and collectively. I also named qualities of light that when embodied can heal us all. Those qualities are curiosity, compassion, courage, creativity, connection to oneself and others, clarity, confidence, and calmness. I want to reflect on these qualities one at a time so today I am thinking about curiosity.
Curiosity is defined as a strong desire to know or learn something; interest; a spirit of inquiry; inquisitiveness. I think babies are the embodiment of these qualities. They are filled with curiosity about the world around them, people, things, their toes, and animals — quite frankly everything. I was thirty-five when my son was born; one of the many gifts he gave me was seeing the world anew through a baby’s eyes. Everything for him was wonderful and magical and often very funny. He laughed tons and so did I as I came to see the world through his eyes. It really got interesting when he started asking questions!
Adults who are genuinely curious are also a delight to be with. When I am around someone who is authentically curious, I find them disarming. I can sense they do not need to defend or protect themselves, their viewpoints, beliefs, or philosophies nor do I feel they will try to change me if I believe differently. When they ask me questions, I feel they are only trying to understand me. I feel I can share my story and be heard by a person even if we are vastly different. I feel open to connection with them.
The opposite of curiosity is judgment. If a person is insecure, fearful, comes from scarcity or worry or lack of self-esteem, they will often be afraid of anything or anyone different and will judge it. That judgment can be silent, be spoken in word, or acted out in deed. The person who judges is often rigid, controlling, and believes they are right. It is very hard to be connected to someone who projects judgment. Profoundly sad is underneath it all a person who judges feels unsafe and the person who is the object of their judgment feels unsafe. It is almost impossible for a human connection to form in this situation.
Since curiosity is such an important quality, I checked on-line to see if there was research that spoke to developmental supports to curiosity in children as well as constraints. I found a very good article on a teachers’ website: Curiosity: The Fuel of Development by Bruce Duncan Perry, MD, PhD: http://teacher.scholastic.com/professional/bruceperry/curiosity.htm. I have excerpted a portion of the article that speaks to factors that constrain curiosity.
Constrained Curiosity
For too many children, curiosity fades. Curiosity dimmed is a future denied. Our potential — emotional, social, and cognitive — is expressed through the quantity and quality of our experiences. And the less-curious child will make fewer new friends, join fewer social groups, read fewer books, and take fewer hikes. The less-curious child is harder to teach because he is harder to inspire, enthuse, and motivate.
There are three common ways adults constrain or even crush the enthusiastic exploration of the curious child: 1) fear, 2) disapproval, and 3) absence.
Fear: Fear kills curiosity. When the child’s world is chaotic or when he is afraid, he will not like novelty. He will seek the familiar, staying in his comfort zone, unwilling to leave and explore new things. Children impacted by war, natural disasters, family distress, or violence all have their curiosity crushed.
Disapproval: “Don’t touch. Don’t climb. Don’t yell. Don’t take that apart. Don’t get dirty. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t.” Children sense and respond to our fears, biases, and attitudes. If we convey a sense of disgust at the mud on their shoes and the slime on their hands, their discovery of tadpoles will be diminished.
Absence: The presence of a caring, invested adult provides two things essential for optimal exploration: 1) a sense of safety from which to set out to discover new things and 2) the capacity to share the discovery and, thereby, get the pleasure and reinforcement from that discovery.
Fear, disapproval, absence teach new or different thoughts are bad; new or different behaviors are bad; doing things differently than others in the family, community or church are bad; so much of anything unfamiliar is bad. Unable to sit with the pain of curiosity denied, the pain of learning and experimenting squashed, the dark emotion of judgment springs forward making anything new and different bad. Judgement covers up the sorrow of not being able to grow, wonder, experiment and be authentically me whatever that is.
This is profoundly sad for us as humans. I believe that if in a single instant everyone in the world became curious about one another, war would end instantly. I really do believe that. I believe if everyone in this country became curious about one another all the strife and pain and anger and rage would subside. I want to end this essay with an example that reinforces my belief that miracles can happen if people who have vastly different points of become curious about each other.
From the website of the West-Eastern Divan http://www.west-eastern-divan.org
“In 1999, Daniel Barenboim and Edward Said founded the West-Eastern Divan as a workshop for Israeli, Palestinian and other Arab musicians. Meeting in Weimar, Germany they materialized a hope to replace ignorance with education, knowledge and understanding; to humanize the other; to imagine a better future. Within the workshop, individuals who had only interacted with each other through the prism of war found themselves living and working together as equals. As they listened to each other during rehearsals and discussions, they traversed deep political and ideological divides. Though this experiment in coexistence was intended as a one-time event, it quickly evolved into a legendary orchestra that flourishes today.
In 2005, the West-Eastern Divan performed in Ramallah, marking the orchestra’s first event in the Occupied Territories. For many Palestinians in the audience, this was the first time they encountered Israelis in a non-military setting. One young girl remarked to Daniel Barenboim, “You are the first thing I’ve seen from Israel that is not a soldier or a tank.”
Because of the Lebanon War in 2006 some musicians could not attend the orchestra’s rehearsals. Those who did hotly debated and discussed what was happening. Emotions ran high, and the orchestra’s very existence and continuity seemed at stake. While there was ultimately no agreement on any one position, there was meaningful exchange and mutual respect. For individuals who were positioned as enemies, this was an extraordinary achievement.
When open war broke out again in Gaza in 2009, Barenboim began the Divan’s performances by reading a shared statement of the orchestra which said: “We aspire to total freedom and equality between Israelis and Palestinians, and it is on this basis that we come together today to play music.”
Two men curious about what might happen if….
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Commentary: November 3, 2023
I confess that reading the words I wrote seven years ago is beginning to freak me out. Everything I wrote in late 2016 was true and is true now, and how far I have fallen from naïve innocence or hope that all would be well if we just hung in there after trump took office. Seven years later, all is not well.
In the Middle East Hamas just brutally attacked Israel. Israel is fighting back. Innocent people on both sides of this war are being killed. We are watching it all on television in real time. It is surreal. No one is demonstrating curiosity in any form. No one is looking for a two-state solution. No one is looking for any solution not in the Middle East or anywhere around the world. Judgement of all parties is rampant; it seems the world is afraid, and the response for most is fight. So much for the dream of the West-Eastern Divan Ensemble founders.
In this country we are dealing with our own “war” — that of ultra conservative white supremacy vs those individuals who seek social justice for all regardless of race, faith, color, ethnicity, gender identification, social class, education, and/or country of origin.
I hope I am wrong on this point, but honestly in this moment in 2023, I feel there is little curiosity on either side of this divide. I go back to a paragraph I wrote in the essay above. From where I sit this morning, it is chilling in its accuracy of both sides of this chasm in our society.
The opposite of curiosity is judgment. If a person is insecure, fearful, comes from scarcity or worry or lack of self-esteem, they will often be afraid of anything or anyone different and will judge it. That judgment can be silent, be spoken in word, or acted out in deed. The person who judges is often rigid, controlling, and believes they are right. It is very hard to be connected to someone who projects judgment. Profoundly sad is underneath it all a person who judges feels unsafe and the person who is the object of their judgment feels unsafe. It is almost impossible for a human connection to form in this situation.
Self-disclosure here — I had curiosity about trump supporters in the early years. I did want to understand why they voted for him. I did want to understand where and how the Democratic party failed them. I did want to understand how we could address their needs and wants in authentic ways. But honestly, after the first two years of trump lies and traumatic policies at the border separating children from their families, Muslim bans, an attempt to void the Affordable Care Act with no plan in place, I quit being curious.
It was clear to me this country was faced with not a difference of opinion of political policy whereby principled Republicans and Democrats could enter in discussion about different points of view and seek compromise solutions. We were faced with a moral crisis. Further it was a moral crisis not only within the leadership of this country but a failure of morality within every person in this country who did not stand up — regardless of political affiliation — and say stop what you are doing it morally wrong.
As a psycho — therapist, I work with clients to help them understand where they came from, how they were parented, what hurts and burdens were inflicted upon them by clumsy parents, clumsy teachers, clumsy church leaders, clumsy friends, clumsy, clumsy, clumsy. People must understand their foundation — the beginning of their story — to understand why they are not happy now.
Then their healing work shifts to the next level which is, “Okay, we understand how you got here. We know a lot of what you went through was hurtful and wrong; they were wrong. Now we turn to what you can do moving forward in your life. Now you must take responsibility for your choices, your decisions, your consequences and act on your behalf.” That is tough for a lot of clients. They like blaming their parents and everyone who did them wrong in their life. It relieves them of the responsibility to act on their own behalf.
I share this to say, this is where I am with the far-right people in this country. I get them. I get their position. I get their histories. I get from their point of view the country and government failed them. I actually understand they are afraid. My shift is that I, unlike the early years after Hilary lost, am no longer curious about the why and how they came to hold their positions because they are now deeply deeply hurting others. In the case of trump’s handling of Covid, they are killing others. They are taking away my right to control my body. They are taking away the rights of citizens to vote. They are causing real harm to millions of other people.
In my world of therapy, the abused have become the abusers. I understand that process very well and I am no longer curious about the abusers. I am only concerned (and yes, curious) about how we use our political systems, financial systems, court systems, and social institutions to stop their bad behavior. I am concerned for the folks they are hurting and very curious how to go about protecting the rights of all in this country as guaranteed to us all by the Constitution. That feels good and right to me.
One final note about curiosity — I was curious as to what happened to the West-Easter Divan Ensemble. I just checked Google and the musicians led by Michael Barenboim performed at the 2023 Mendelssohn Festival. Their next concert tour which started November 1, 2023, begins in Berlin then onto London and then, for the first time, onto Asia.
A tiny part of me feels sad that I have so little curiosity about trump and his supporters. I understand why that is; I just feel a tiny bit sad in this moment it is so. I have many parts that are grateful for people like Michael Barenboim who seek to bring disparate sides together to show us that curiosity, hard work and perseverance can create miracles — one performance at a time. Sigh…..
