To Know and to Love

"Curiosity killed the cat." 

Whenever the notion of curiosity comes up in an English language conversation, someone is bound to say it. Yes, I suppose curiosity can kill, but come on. It's not curiosity that kills the cat, it's rashness or heedlessness or impulsiveness that leads to a careless act, yet curiosity gets the blame, as if we somehow must caution one another against it.

We all know that curiosity makes life at least a million times better than the alternative, which is to be uncurious. 

Curiosity is the impulse behind science. We wonder why or what, when, who, where, why, and how, then undertake to figure it out. It is likewise the impulse behind play.

Curiosity can almost be seen as a synonym for love. After all, what is love if it isn't seeking to know everything there is to know about another person. And of course, it's well-known that love dies when curiosity fades.

Cats are, of course, famous for their curiosity, as are dogs, lizards, fish, and any other animals I can name. Insects may or may not experience curiosity, but they at least exhibit behavior that could be interpreted as curiosity. And for all we know, it may be curiosity that makes the amoeba move and the grasses grow: making it a, if not the, universal creative force.

The occasional killed cat notwithstanding, curiosity, tempered by caution, so far seems to be an adaptive trait, but, of course, maybe not. Maybe not when it's used to do evil, to prey on one another, like the curiosity of an identity thief or or blackmailer, although it could be argued that it's greed, not curiosity, that motivates them. A similar thing could be said for "curiosity" in the hands of merchants and bankers, and while they need not necessarily be greedy, their impure motive is to monetize the products of curiosity. To the degree that they are creative, it is driven by practical, selfish purposes more than curiosity itself. As Iris Murdoch wrote, "All curiosity divorced from love or science (is) necessarily malign." 

According to no less an authority on curiosity than Albert Einstein, "Curiosity has its own reason for existence." In other words, it can't be yoked to any other purpose, but its own, which if Ms. Murdoch is right, is to know and to love. And that is kind of everything. No wonder the cat is so ready to die for curiosity.

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I'm excited to announce that Teacher Tom's Second Book is now available in Australia and New Zealand as well as the US, Canada, the UK, Iceland, and Europe. And if you missed it, Teacher Tom's First Book is back in print as well. 

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