Curiosity Saved the Cat and Me

Life is busy. We work, we raise our kids, we try to keep our commitments to ourselves, our families, our spouses. At the end of the day we are tired. At the start of many days we are tired. My wife has a hate/hate relationship with her alarm clock. It is easy to understand why.

So developing a curiosity about life and learning is hard to do when you have achieved adulthood and all the responsibilites that entails. I have always felt a desire to learn, to know more about anything I could. My children know this about me and know when one of my new pieces of knowledge is about to drop. My friends know that if a sentence begins with " I read" that I am about to espouse some new information I have gleaned and found worthwhile. I need to thank them for their forbearance and understanding.

I understand why as we hit middle age we lose our interest in inellectual expansion. We are busy, people are incredibly busy, going to work, raising our children, and keeping the bills paid. To come home and be in the familiar whether it be in the glow of a screen or something else familiar is easily understood.

I do not know why I am so curious. I do not remember being that intellectually curious in high school, certainly not in college. Somewhere however over the last decade of so I have had this overwhelming interest in everything.

Now of course not working gives me the ability to read more and learn more that I want to do for my own benefit. I still never have enough time. Certainly time is tempered by the days where I sleep twenty hours, or the days where holding a book up and aloft to read is too much. A day where brushing ones teeth leaves one reaching for the pain pills is a day where not much learning is going to be accomplished. I say this not as a complaint, I will not complain, I think my loved ones can attest to this, but as a reason that I, even without an employer, cannot find the time to satisfy my internal employer.

I told my best friend once that I feared I would die young. It was always a concern, both my brothers died prematurely, and it is still is but as my faith has become stronger I have left that in Gods hands. I still try to do all I can to impart wisdom and character in my children. I wish I was rich enough that my wife would be perfectly set were I to not be here but we all have things we wish we for that we cannot achieve.


Still I wonder sometimes where this thirst for knowledge comes from. Am I trying to run a race, to beat a clock that only I can feel. When I look at the shelves of history and biography books I have read I wonder what will become of these and the knowledge they offer when I am dust. Does it mean anything? I think it does, I hope it does. For me I think that an interest in learning means one is optomistic. If one wants to learn they believe that the future can be brighter. That the one additional piece of knowledge gained at anyone time might be the one that tips the balance if, not in your favor , at least in a positive way.

If I can talk to my twelve year old daughter about a fascinating article I read on how banannas are grown, how altruistic traits in lesser species such as ants might show why we humans act the way we do, and how horticultural studies of apples have changed the fruit into something bland and now attempts to make it the tasty product it was two hundred years ago I might help her to accept her interest in Science and Math and do something in the world that will matter to others.

My middle son wants to join the military to make a difference in the world. My wife tells him kindergarten teachers make a difference as well but I understand his desire. In the end as we lay on our deathbed we all want to think we have a legacy, that we made a difference.

As I watch old movies and regret the age I live in, as I read books, currently ranging from a book about Roger Williams, a Revolutionary War fiction called Oliver Wiswell, H G Wells The Time Machine and the third book in the Robert Caro LBJ biography I ask myself why. The truth is I do not know. I just know it is who I am.


I am thrilled by the free classes offered on ITunes University but struggle to find the time to partake. I extoll the Khan University website, it really is an amazing source of knowledge and learning, and attempt to watch at least one video a day. Today I watched a lesson the relationship of the scope and size of The Earth and the Sun. It is all told in simple ways which make learning easy and attainable.

In short I guess I still feel like I am racing against a clock. I do not know why but I feel like there is an infinite amount of things to learn and a finite supply of time. I have to remember to learn for the love of learning not for the love of having knowledge. I still remember it most days. Sometimes I feel like I am in kindergarten and feeling the same amazement when things first are learned. I remember the excitement of second grade and learning cursive writing. Mrs Gross taught us to write the words mail and man and I was so happy that I wrote mailman combining the two. I was not a showoff, I was a quiet kid, even then the idea of learning and expanding excited me.

It is something that will never change for me. It is who I am. I am sure it is a burden to some who care for me and interact with me. I just hope that they know that if they ever need to know something about how banannas are grown that they can call me anytime.