Here are some thoughts about curiosity and confidence to go along with our discussion on agreeableness...
Yesterday when we were discussing agreeableness ... one insight was the importance of confidence and curiosity.
Confidence is critical because without it we can be very defensive and spend a lot of mental energy deriving ways to feel better about ourselves.
Curiosity is very hard to have when we lack confidence because of that lack of mental energy...we become too self consumed with coming up with and defending ways we are superior to others instead of discovering the nature of reality.
Philosophers are driven to discover...deeply interested in the nature of reality because by definition a philosopher is interested in discovering truth. One of my beliefs is that philosophers do this because we all have so much to learn about our reality.
Reality is infinitely complex ... so the idea that asking deeper questions and questions is just for young people is foolish...Older people do ask fewer questions but the reason seems to have more to do with shortcuts to achieving a fake feeling of superiority...which is like a band-aide for true confidence.
One key tell for those that are truly confident and curious are those that show interest in challenging their beliefs and convictions. The motivation for this stems from a recognition of the infinite complexity of life...and learning more always delivers more opportunities to help those who are suffering...which you once talked about to me at length as a child.
For philosophers ... the desire to learn is greater than their fear of discovering that perhaps some of their beliefs exist as a means of feeling superior...
...and therefore supporting their fragile source of confidence...
This seems to happen more often than not as a course of human lifecycle. A big reason is that it’s so easy to do.
So the reason I no longer feel Grandad was right about his views on humans being “Too damn dumb” is because I think it’s too easy to use this as a means of feeling confident at the expense of being truly confident...
...and thus suppressing curiosity
...and thus preventing learning and growing...
...because it’s easier to feel good about ourselves by complaining about others than actually thinking deeply about reality and learning to affect positive change for those in need.
Love,
Joe
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