Curiosity
You ask me “why?”—the question seems to burn
like you were made to seek out novelty,
to stimulate your mind, explore, and learn:
exactly why your curiosity
is not so curious at all, to me!
Your brain contains an elemental drive
that underlies a trait to quest and strive.
This craving is the hunger of your mind,
more subtle than your body’s urgent need,
and unlike sustenance, you soon will find
that memories and knowledge won’t recede –
instead accumulate—then freely breed
and shift in shape, a mesh of plasticine,
identity that outranks any gene.
“What is it for?” predictably you ask.
The word originates from care, then cure,
and both illuminate its crucial task:
concern about your world compels a tour;
avoiding harm is vital, to endure.
In either case the knowledge that you gain
is keen equipment, thwarting future pain.
Too often, letdowns—setbacks—injury
will on your sweet serenity intrude!
Respond by stoking curiosity;
do not indulge a dismal attitude,
but rather grow your worldly aptitude
through learning how to render differently
and reckon outcomes more reliably.
Yet even if there is no grievous cue,
it largely pays to be inquisitive
about a topic when it interests you:
done well, and should it seep through Fortune’s sieve,
your research just might prove transformative
with unexpected pleasures brought to light,
a danger dodged, a need secured outright.
A teacher is the answer to your “How?”
Do not assume you know how teachers look,
for I am one, and I am teaching now,
but when alone, your teacher is a book,
(at once repast and remedy and cook)
or written words served as a smaller dish,
or film, or any form of art you wish.
Your greatest teacher is the world itself
and glory comes to those who find her codes;
for she is coy, no book upon a shelf,
and must be queried via crab-walk modes:
your question is, which questions make inroads?
Instruction thus proceeds aesthetically
with obverse strokes of creativity.
Some warning words: from heedless hands comes due
the steep cat-cost of curiosity—
yet like the cat, you might recover too;
though circumspection guides concern, set free
it breeds addiction to mere novelty;
when knowledge turns to dogma strictly true
it shackles life like fauna in a zoo.
In time your probing, literary mind
builds wisdom as it judges right from wrong,
and seeing many ways to live, will find
a purpose that becomes your pilot song;
yet exploration dwells with you lifelong—
your curiosity will spin a tale
worth telling, like a quest to find the grail.
First appeared in The Society of Classical Poets, February 2021
