Solo curiosity is fun. Unfettered navel-gazing. Only your own questions. No pesky interruptions to your pursuit of answers. It’s marvellous. And incredibly valuable. Right up until it isn’t. Because then it’s slow. And lonely. And strewn with assumptions waiting to trip you up.
Go it alone and tease out your curious community. People who can conjure with ideas. People who can reinvigorate a tired brain. People who can take you on extraordinary flights of fancy that smash through your preconceptions of the possible. And terrify you a bit too. People whose take is so bafflingly different to yours that you don’t know what’s real anymore. [1] And people who’ll offer you the best, kindest eyeroll when you’ve gone astray. And help you get curious about what the point was in the first place. This is your community.[2]
Some you’ll already know. Some you won’t. Some you’ll know but, ahem, not like that. You needn’t be soulmates. You needn’t chat beyond the blue moon. You’re getting curious, not married. Diversify and multiply: make a community, not a Best Friend. A community as diverse and as simpatico as possible. Diverse in what you do, how you think, how you get curious together. (Brief power chats, lengthy strolls, the odd Whatsapp thread, whatever.) And simpatico because getting curious is a risk. And it’s much easier to take risks if you do so from a place of safety. Build a curious collective that’s both challenging and safe enough to get seriously, playfully, riskily curious. Spark fruitful collision.
Look out for the new; start with the known. Scan your contacts: friends, colleagues, family, neighbours, someone you met once who seemed interesting. Identify a potential conspirator. Be a bit forward. Ask them to get curious with you for 20 minutes. Bring a question, idea, thought or Thing each. And see what happens. Notice the questions you ask each other. Notice how they’re asked. Pay attention to how you feel. Pay attention to whether you both pay attention. See what happens next. You’ll find out pretty fast whether you’re creating your curious community.
Seek your conspirators everywhere. In the obvious, the unexpected, the outlandish. Don’t get hung up on the big. Or dramatic, or regular, or permanent. A quick chat can spark an adventure; a throwaway remark fresh light. And act today. (And tomorrow, and the day after that, and. Etc.) Whose curiosity will you set aflame? Who will ignite yours? When? How? Be bold, think laterally, crack on.
Not sure where to start? Haunted by the spectre of LinkedIn? (Me too.) Give your life a good going over with a few questions first. (Bend, amend and adapt to your own purposes, of course.)
Whose conversation excites, confounds, baffles, surprises, discombobulates you?
Who delights in imaginative wanderings?
Who could you connect or reconnect with for an alternative perspective?
Who might just have some intriguing contacts of their own?
Keen to get curious and fancy a spot of help?
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