Chad Comello

Tag: curiosity

  • Stupid questions

    I’ve worked in libraries for a decade, much of that time at a public info desk answering people’s questions. And do you know what drives me absolutely crazy? Whenever someone starts their question with “This might be a stupid question, but…”

    You know why? Because there’s no such thing as a stupid question.

    To be clear, I’m not at all annoyed by the person or by their question. I’m annoyed by the internalized shame that has caused them to think that their lack of knowledge about something means that asking someone about it is a display of stupidity.

    And I don’t care what your question is or how simple it supposedly is. Curiosity and humility should be rewarded, not condescended to. So ask away.

  • There are no coincidences

    Austin Kleon on clues and curiosity:

    Something I learned a long time ago is that it is a great help to the artist to believe that there are no coincidences. One way to boost your curiosity is to just assume that everything in life is a clue left from the universe for further investigation. Follow the clues the universe drops for you, and you will almost always learn something interesting. Take everything as a sign and you’ll be less stumped about what to do next.

  • I don’t know, I need to learn

    Here’s an exchange I had with my 4 year old while on a recent walk around the pond:

    “Papa, guess what: penguins cannot fly.”

    “Why is that?”

    “I don’t know, I need to learn.”

    We were walking past some ducks when he said this so that must have triggered the fact about penguins, which I’m guessing he learned from one of his Yoto cards.

    I love that part—that urge to share what he knows. But I also love his response to my follow-up question: when confronted with something he didn’t know, he both admitted ignorance and expressed the desire to investigate further.

    Both of those impulses come naturally at his age, so I’m not saying he’s special in that way. I just really respect and enjoy the preschooler’s tendency to declare what they know (or think they know) and remain insatiably curious about what they don’t.

  • On the aesthetic mindset

    I enjoyed the recent Armchair Expert conversation with Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross—the authors of Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us—about how the arts affect our brains and well being.

    At one point they talk about having an aesthetic mindset, which isn’t some kind of highfalutin theory but instead just the concept of taking things in through your senses. Their four key aspects of that mindset: curiosity, playfulness, sense experiences, and making/beholding.

    I’m definitely now intrigued by the book, not that I need to be convinced of its thesis…