May be it's not contributing/promoting our https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikigai
Why Aren’t We Curious About the Things We Want to Be Curious About?
11–20 of 125 posts
Re: Why Aren’t We Curious About the Things We Want to Be Curious About?
#12> When I’m surfing the web I want to be drawn in by articles on Europe’s political history or the nature of quasars
That's the problem right there. Articles are the white sugar of information. They contain a tiny amount of actual info, but not enough to be useful in any meaningful way. If you truly want to learn about something, read a book or a paper. Articles will get you nowhere.
Re: Why Aren’t We Curious About the Things We Want to Be Curious About?
#13Answer is simple - we think we know it. Once you think you know something it immediately all excitement and interest disappears. But can you really know anything absolutely, fully in this Universe? Someone involved into science should answer what grows more with study - knowledge or realization of one's own ignorance? Someone said "I know only one thing - I know nothing", to me this is the most profound understanding…
That's not true for me, I know very little electrical engineering/low level programming/embedded devices etc and wish I knew more, and yet I can't muster enough inherent interest to learn more. But I'm generally very curious about stuff and regularly read news/studies/documentation and get lost in wiki holes, but for a lot of useless stuff I don't really have a use for. So this is definitely an issue for me. I do pro…
>But I'm generally very curious about stuff and regularly read news/studies/documentation and get lost in wiki holes
Well this is it, the curiosity comes when you know there is something you don't know.
>but for a lot of useless stuff I don't really have a use for
That's a different matter, usefulness depends on billion factors around us and things which you consider useless might very well one day define your life.
Re: Why Aren’t We Curious About the Things We Want to Be Curious About?
#14Because your attention is your future self.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16x8vd2L4cw
Re: Why Aren’t We Curious About the Things We Want to Be Curious About?
#15Answer is simple - we think we know it. Once you think you know something it immediately all excitement and interest disappears. But can you really know anything absolutely, fully in this Universe? Someone involved into science should answer what grows more with study - knowledge or realization of one's own ignorance? Someone said "I know only one thing - I know nothing", to me this is the most profound understanding…
I don’t really think this is true. Actually, personally I find it difficult to diversify my interests: I like a couple of specific topics and spend most of my time learning about those, and it’s somewhat difficult for me to look into things that would be useful to know but I haven’t done much work with.
>things that would be useful to know
Again, I'm not talking about usefulness - it's altogether another dimension.
>I find it difficult to diversify my interests
Try a simple thing - pick anything outside of your interests and ask all sorts of questions about it to yourself, to see how much you really don't know. Some examples could be - where does it come from? who invented it? under what circumstances? how come it has this color/size/shape/feeling? how come it's this material? how come it takes this time?
I promise - you will discover all sorts of strange, funny and fascinating stories which you could not imagine. This is a way to spark interest.
Re: Why Aren’t We Curious About the Things We Want to Be Curious About?
#16> When I’m surfing the web I want to be drawn in by articles on Europe’s political history or the nature of quasars That's the problem right there. Articles are the white sugar of information. They contain a tiny amount of actual info, but not enough to be useful in any meaningful way. If you truly want to learn about something, read a book or a paper. Articles will get you nowhere.
I disagree, an article from a good subject/specialized encyclopedia (as opposed to a general encyclopedia) is an excellent introduction to a topic and will be written by scholars in that field.
Re: Why Aren’t We Curious About the Things We Want to Be Curious About?
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don’t really think this is true. Actually, personally I find it difficult to diversify my interests: I like a couple of specific topics and spend most of my time learning about those, and it’s somewhat difficult for me to look into things that would be useful to know but I haven’t done much work with.
>things that would be useful to know Again, I'm not talking about usefulness - it's altogether another dimension. >I find it difficult to diversify my interests Try a simple thing - pick anything outside of your interests and ask all sorts of questions about it to yourself, to see how much you really don't know. Some examples could be - where does it come from? who invented it? under what circumstances? how come it h…
> I promise - you will discover all sorts of strange, funny and fascinating stories which you could not imagine. This is a way to spark interest.
Oh, I don’t have a problem finding interesting topics outside of what I already know: I spend too much time on Wikipedia reading random articles already. The issue I have is that I can’t bring myself to be interested in things I should cultivate an interest in, like machine learning or databases.
Re: Why Aren’t We Curious About the Things We Want to Be Curious About?
#18[deleted]
Re: Why Aren’t We Curious About the Things We Want to Be Curious About?
#19if you’re not reading about some subject you think you’re curious about, can we still call it being curious about said subject ?
Maybe you just find the idea of being curious about the subject cool.
Makes me think of this quote ascribed to Picasso:
When art critics get together they talk about Form and Structure and Meaning. When artists get together they talk about where you can buy cheap turpentine.
So maybe the author is not curious as an artist, but curious as an art critique.
Re: Why Aren’t We Curious About the Things We Want to Be Curious About?
#20> When I’m surfing the web I want to be drawn in by articles on Europe’s political history or the nature of quasars That's the problem right there. Articles are the white sugar of information. They contain a tiny amount of actual info, but not enough to be useful in any meaningful way. If you truly want to learn about something, read a book or a paper. Articles will get you nowhere.
I disagree, an article from a good subject/specialized encyclopedia (as opposed to a general encyclopedia) is an excellent introduction to a topic and will be written by scholars in that field.
I think by "article", the comment refers to article like in news or in some general audience site, not on specialized place.