NATURAL CURIOSITY


There is a direct relationship between interest and intelligence;
that is, between curiosity and mental development. With little of
the former, there will be little of the latter. This natural curiosity,
so apparent in children, seems to be muted with passing years.
The pressures for success and the trials of daily interaction have a
tendency to benumb and dull the instinct for exploration.

Not all are affected to the same degree. Some lose this instinct
completely, some only slightly. Thus, we find some mature adults
still possessed with a childlike quality that allows for spontaneity
and presence in the moment, while others are afflicted with the
heavy baggage which fears involvement.

Those in this unfortunate category seek little outside the self, for
all that is new becomes a new threat to already low esteem. It is a
dramatic irony that those who most need enlightenment are least
likely to receive it. As a result of such closure, society itself
suffers. The greater the ignorance, the more fertile the soil for
prejudice, hatred, and selfism.

Open eyes see farther, allowing room in the heart for more than
shallow ego. Those lucky enough to escape the prison of ignorance
have done so by surpassing the fears which were its bars. Curiosity
and interest became the hacksaw which allowed release into the light

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of knowledge. And theirs, alone, is the legacy of salvation: for a
knowledge of the world beyond the self becomes the glue of society.
Without such expansion, the imagined devils of little minds create
conflicts within the community.

Without personal growth, it is a lonely world of little fears and shallow strides. Little victories without consequence ... petty pride
and futile progress. A philosophy so limited cannot hope to achieve
goals of nobility, prescience, or permanence, for they all remain
outside the limited self.

Nor can such deficit maintain even the lesser civil goals of tolerance and cooperation, for the invaginated self is necessarily its most
important object. Compassion requires that certain openness of the
child, the innocent and uncluttered mind which grants, at least,
a meeting halfway ... the courage to try something, at least once.
Otherwise, the frightened self will discourage the new, wary of
further disappointment, and refuse to open timid gates. And that is
the most tragic philosophy. The soul hungers for understanding,
which comes from the knowledge of diversity ... the world outside
the self. For, only in our natural curiosity can we free ourselves from the limits of ourselves, by allowing in the greatness beyond:
Embrace the new; you will be, in turn, embraced.