Tag: curiosity

Palm Frond

“We don’t believe what we see. We see what we believe.” – Kelly Corrigan, a takeaway from her discussion with Mónica Guzmán

Mónica Guzmán is a journalist who wrote I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times. Guzmán describes herself as a lifelong liberal from Seattle who has parents who were once Mexican immigrants, who now happen to be fierce Trump supporters. Guzmán wrote this book in 2022. I just downloaded it to my Kindle. I imagine that an election year is as good a year as any, to read a book like this.

The only time that real, lasting changes occur anywhere, is when people change their minds. Real changes only occur when people examine their beliefs and find loopholes and pitfalls and questions where there used to be ironclad answers. Sometimes it takes extreme events in our lives to allow ourselves to fully and openly examine our own beliefs.

The other day, I was driving on the road and up in the distance was a blondish hump lying in the middle of the road. I instantly felt sick to my stomach. “It’s a dead animal,” I thought. “It’s roadkill.” Then my imagination really got to the best of me. “It’s probably a dead dog.” And due to the size and the color of the mass on the road, it was most likely a golden retriever. Someone’s beloved family dog, their gorgeous golden retriever, had been left in the middle of the road to die by some horrible jerk! I was sick to my stomach. I had tears in my eyes. And then as I got closer, I saw that it was a large palm frond that had probably been blown down in one of the storms we have been having. Yes, what I saw up ahead on the road was a palm frond all along. “We see what we believe.”

Sometimes just knowing why someone believes what they believe, helps us to gain empathy and understanding, even if we don’t share their beliefs. Sometimes exploring why we, ourselves, believe what we believe, helps us to gain empathy and understanding about ourselves. How many times do we watch a movie and a character has an extreme reaction to a situation, and just as we are scratching our heads, wondering about their over-the-top reaction, we get a flashback to the backstory of what most likely caused that character’s extreme reaction in the present time? Sometimes our beliefs come from irrational, exaggerated places in the dark corners of our minds that stem from extreme experiences, or frightening people who did not allow us to disagree.

In a divisive year, in a divisive time in our country, there is no better time to figure out how to feel better. The only way to figure out how to feel better about anything, especially troubling things, is to explore these situations with open-minded curiosity, and with the aim of finding some kind of understanding. I am hoping that Guzmán’s book has some good ideas about how to do this, because our current system of dueling parties, extreme media platforms, and people screaming at, and denigrating each other on social media, is getting us nowhere and has been getting us nowhere, for a long, long time.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

2268. What is your favorite conversation topic?

Best Feelings

Two of my favorite feelings in the world are rarely discussed. Happiness, love, joy, glee, pride, excitement, peace, gratitude are all well-known “up” feelings on the feelings wheel/scale, but two of my all-time favorite feelings that I literally bathe in/saturate in/soak fully in and appreciate immensely, beyonds words are: 1) Having my curiosity satisfied (even if something/someone/some happening ends up being terrible, at least I know . . . Wondering is the worst state of limbo and being in limbo is one of my least favorite feelings in the world) and 2) Relief. I had to put a period after the word “Relief” because the feeling of relief is that solidly good. Both of these emotions are “results of results.” Both of these emotions eliminate uncertainty.

Since last summer our family and our extended family has been in what feels like a constant state of having to anticipate, and having to plan for both unusually good and unusually bad life-changing events. There have been graduations, new schools, major illnesses, funerals, dealing with estates, major trips, planning moves to new places, new job offers, etc. etc. etc. There have been so many new decisions to make. Now, I grasp that this is often just the way of life, but sometimes life gets a little clumpy, and since last summer, we’ve been rolling through a big ol’ clump of change that for now, at least, seems to have levelled out a little bit. We can breathe. The storm has passed. The direction ahead seems a little more clear in the windshield. (Now this is the point where I take a pause from writing, and I knock on my wooden desk until my knuckles turn bloody.)

Anyway, for today, I am luxuriating in the feeling of relief, and the gratitude for feeling this sense of relief. The weight feels lifted off of my shoulders. I can feel the grateful pause in my mind, and in my body, and and in my soul. I no longer have a million “What ifs?/How’s this going to go?/What’s next?” swirling around in my mind. I could have lived without the clustered clump of the major highs and the major lows which my family and I just experienced in less than a year, but perhaps the wonderful, cleansing, breathe out moment of relief that I am feeling right now, makes it all worth it.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Full Moons and Curiosity

It’s not lost on me that we are experiencing a Super Full Moon today. For many of us, full moons signify the ending of something big, and the doors to new beginnings. Our youngest child, and our only daughter left for college less than three weeks ago. My entire mantra for the first half of this year has been “Finish Strong.” It was my entire focus. And I believe that we did finish strong. My daughter loved and soaked in all of her senior events (as did we), and although we are all in a period of adjustment, I believe that she has a strong beginning set in place for the start of her adult life, away from home.

I’m not sure that I have fully allowed myself to feel the emotions of the magnitude of what this means for me. I was a stay-at-home parent to our four children. Mothering was not just one of my roles. It was my main role. It was my occupation. So not only is my main role of daily parenting coming to an end, I am also retiring from my occupation. Double whammy.

I don’t need suggestions of what to do with my time. I’ve never been bored. I am a curious person. Curious people are rarely bored. I think what I am struggling with right now is finding a new mantra – an aim to set my Sagittarius arrow towards. As it is said, “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it you will land among the stars.” (Les Brown) For now, this mantra is “Start Strong”, but that’s kind of nebulous. I haven’t worked out the details of what that means. But I will figure it out. This I know. Curious people have a knack for figuring stuff out.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Brought Him Back

I’m headed out to see my eldest son’s new digs this weekend for the first time. I am going to see his life in reality, not just how he describes it to me. I have my expectations set correctly. He has always leaned heavily towards the Oscar side of things, versus Felix. I can’t wait to see him, of course, but I also can’t wait to have an accurate visual of him hiking around the neighborhood lake, the placid lake that he always talks about while he talks to us, his short commute to his office building and I can’t wait to see his beloved local grocery store, supposedly filled with fabulous, unique delicacies, the likes that we’ve never seen.

My daughter and I were talking about what it is like to see something or someone in reality, that apparition which you have conjured up in your mind, for a very long time. When I read a good, engrossing novel, before long, I have a very detailed image in my mind, of what the characters look like, and their mannerisms and their voices. When Hollywood gets it “wrong” in the movie version, I just want to scream. Sometimes, I can’t even finish watching the film.

Also interesting are the times that I have seen celebrities, in person. That experience is always a tad disconcerting, too. The celebrities always seem like such teeny people to me. Perhaps, because in our minds, famous people seem so much larger than life, so when we see them in person, they are shockingly normal sized. They are amazingly, just people, and not the exaggerated, dynamos of energy, announcing their presence like The Great Wizard of Oz. The real person part of them is the human wizard who lives behind the curtain, behind the facade of their illustrious acting or singing or sporting personas. When the superstars are not bolstered up, and blown up by the spotlights and the limelight, they shrink back to size, like a puff pastry, taken out of the hot oven, to cool down.

Regardless, while curiosity killed the cat, I’ve always liked the part of the proverb that reminds us that “satisfaction brought him back.” I love having my curiosity satisfied. It is one of my greatest pleasures in life. Even if whatever I have been anticipating disappoints or is 180 degrees different than what I have been anticipating, at least I am now, “in the know.” There is no nebulous about that particular person, place or thing, swirling around in my mind, lost in wonder and fog and exaggeration. The hazy, imagined concept, constantly being stirred and conjured and changed up in my imagination, finally solidifies to form to a concrete vision – a hard chunk of reality, and my life and my visions and my sensibility feels more solid again. I’ve got my feet on the ground again, and the comfort of the accuracy of my experience versus the ambiguity of an idea with no true, real physical form, has the tendency to give my soul some solace and my mind some peace.

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Satisfaction Brought Her Back

I was all set to write about something else today and then I came upon this quote unexpectedly:

“Blessed are the curious for they shall have adventures.” – Lovelle Drachman

I’m admittedly a very curious person.  I hate getting into ruts.  This day and age is a wonderful time for us curious folk!  There is so much information to be had, just at the wink of an eye and a push of a button.  Yesterday, I got sidetracked into looking up information about the Kermode bear.  It is also known as the spirit bear.  It is a white bear, but not as white as a polar bear.  It lives in British Columbia.  I found myself curious because it has the same coloring as our dog, who is a Dudley labrador.  These gorgeous animals, Kermodes and Dudleys, have green eyes and pinkish-brown noses.

I also got sidetracked yesterday reading all about Stan Lee, the creator of Marvel comics.  Now I’m not much of a comic book fan, but my youngest son is and he was genuinely sad about Stan Lee’s passing.  I was delighted in the video footage I found of Stan and his wife of 70 years, Joan.  They were really cool people and completely devoted to each other.  From the video footage, I decided that they were both the type of people who you couldn’t help but to instantly like.

Luckily, due to my curiosity, I have met all sorts of interesting people.  I’m the kind of person who strangers tend to tell their life stories to and sometimes that annoys me, but mostly, I find it fascinating.  I have learned so much about people and about myself from being open to others’ points of view.

My curiosity has made me a wanderer.  Years ago, I took my kids on a nine state, 15 city road tour.  We ended up wandering through the horse farms near the Kentucky Derby on part of this trip.  Then my curiosity got the very best of me, and I decided to get out and actually see one of these majestic horses up close, on the farm.  No one yelled at us for trespassing and I will never forget the stallion that I gazed at.  This horse was so tall, majestic, muscular and other-worldly – one of the most beautiful animals that I have ever seen and I love animals!

I’m truly grateful to be a curious person.  I’ve tried a lot of different foods, read a lot of different books, have had a lot of interesting jobs, wandered into all of the different neighborhoods in all of the different cities that I have lived in, have had almost every kind of pet imaginable, and I have been blessed to have traveled to a lot of cool places in the world.  I find all religious and spiritual practices fascinating.  I am truly mesmerized by nature.  I am very thankful for my curiosity, and my open mind but also for my beautiful guardian angel who has kept me safe throughout my adventures.  She has worked over-time but we have had a lot of fun along the way!

“Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any other experience that reveals the human spirit.” – e. e. cummings

“Curiosity is the lust of the mind.” –  Thomas Hobbes