{"id":22,"date":"2014-03-13T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-03-13T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/16dea970-96a5-4160-9bb4-df5f852f51a8"},"modified":"2014-03-13T05:00:00","modified_gmt":"2014-03-13T05:00:00","slug":"playing-with-words-curiosity-by-joseph-anthony-eft-practitioner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thewonderchildblog.com\/?p=22","title":{"rendered":"Playing With Words: Curiosity, by Joseph Anthony, EFT Practitioner"},"content":{"rendered":"

Playing With Words<\/o:p><\/font><\/p>\n

Curiosity<\/o:p><\/font><\/p>\n

By<\/o:p><\/font><\/p>\n

Joseph Anthony, EFT Practitioner<\/o:p><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/o:p><\/p>\n

Curiosity
\nkilled the cat, so the saying goes.  It
\nalso sparked every idea to improve something or to discover new ways to treat
\nillnesses or to make better mousetraps. In today\u2019s world however, other than
\ncats feeling annoyed at fewer mice to eat, hardly anyone ever notices, or even
\ncares about curiosity.  Especially
\nteachers and corporate leaders.  They
\nneed their students, employees, and consumers doing the same old-same old, day
\nin, day out.  The average Joe isn\u2019t
\nsupposed to be curious or to come up with new, innovative ideas.  That\u2019s for the higher ups.  We\u2019re not supposed to wonder about new foods
\nor brands.  Students aren\u2019t meant to ask
\nany questions that don\u2019t pertain to standardized tests.<\/o:p><\/font><\/p>\n

Yet curiosity
\nis the very thing that will save the world. 
\nFor this world to continue to grow, blossom, and evolve, more and more
\npeople, especially children and their teachers and parents, need to become
\nincreasingly curious.<\/o:p><\/font><\/p>\n

Curious<\/font><\/i> comes directly from the Latin and
\nmeans \u201ccareful, diligent, inquiring eagerly, and meddlesome (Online EtymologyDictionary<\/a>).\u201d  In mid-14th<\/sup>
\ncentury France the word took on negative shadings and began to mean \u201canxious,
\nodd, or strange (ibid).\u201d  And, speaking
\nof odd, curious,<\/i> when used in booksellers\u2019
\ncatalogs, means, \u201cerotic and pornographic (ibid).\u201d<\/o:p><\/font><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s hold
\non to the original Latin for the sake of this post (it\u2019s usually a good bet to
\nstick with the Latin): \u201ccareful, diligent, inquiring eagerly, and meddlesome.\u201d  We can easily see the benefits of children being
\ncareful and diligent, but once they start asking lots of questions we call
\nthem, \u201cWhy Birds,\u201d and get impatient: \u201cBecause that\u2019s the way it is,\u201d we say, or
\nworse: \u201cBecause I said so.\u201d  We stifle
\ntheir questions with another DVD. We tell them to go play or take
\nthem to another soccer practice\u2014anything but sit and really answer their
\nquestions or vulnerably admit we do not know the answers.  <\/o:p><\/font><\/p>\n

Leonardo
\nDaVinci\u2019s painting teacher quit when he realized young Leonardo was a better
\npainter than he was.  That man was a
\ncoward.  Courageous and wise teachers
\nshould welcome their students becoming smarter, more creative, more innovative,
\nand more enlightened in every way than they are.   They\u2019ve done their job once their students
\noutshine them.  <\/o:p><\/font><\/p>\n

The spirit
\nof asking questions eagerly should run like blood through the veins of our
\nminds and hearts.  It should travel our
\nvery nervous systems and tickle our fancies. 
\nI am not suggesting questioning everything.  I am suggesting asking important, revelatory
\nquestions that will change the way things are done\u2014questions that will revolutionize
\nyour life.  This is not knocking traditions
\nand well established practices in a wide variety of subjects.  It is to say however, if there are areas in
\nyour life where you just go with the flow in the sense of living blindly (not
\nTaoistically), unconsciously, without care, apathetically, without any thought
\nof why you\u2019re doing what you\u2019re doing then you need a jolt of curiosity.  Ask questions that make you feel
\nuncomfortable, sweaty in your palms, nervous in your assumptions\u2014thrilled with
\nwide-eyed wonder.  Ask the questions that
\nraise eyebrows, ruffle feathers, inspire sneers.  Don\u2019t ask to offend.  Ask to know. Ask because you want a better
\nlife, a more evolved, conscious life. Be meddlesome. Meddlesome into questions
\nof your faith and life-long held beliefs and prayers.  Are they working?  Are they bearing fruit in your life and in
\nthe lives of those around you?  Your
\neveryday practices of thinking.  Are they
\nhealthy, productive, fun, inspired, compassionate, open, creative? If not.  Change them. 
\nAsk for help if you need to. 
\nRevolutionize your life, one thing at a time.  Invigorate and innovate your spiritual and
\nemotional life with the light of curiosity. <\/o:p><\/font><\/p>\n

And if you
\nmake a change and \u201cfail,\u201d so what? Go back to the old way, or try another new
\nway.  The more we give ourselves the
\nfreedom to fail and take healthy risks the better our world will become, the
\nmore enlightened and plain old fun and amazing it will turn out to be.  Practice this discipline of curious
\nquestioning, develop your sense of wonder, then pass that spirit to the
\nchildren of the world.<\/o:p><\/font><\/p>\n

You might
\nthink children have curiosity and wonder naturally, and they do to an extent,
\nbut today\u2019s children, raised on hand-held devices, computers, TV-nature shows,
\nhave all the facts about everything at their fingertips.  There is no need to ask questions–real
\nquestions.  Yet deep down, the children
\nof today are becoming increasingly restless (it shows up in teenagers who walk
\naround with their pants around their thighs and ear-buds in their ears).  Some attribute this restlessness to
\ndiet.  I attribute it to a deadening
\neducation system and to their own observations of the adults around them doing
\nthe same tired things every day, watching the same old shows, going to jobs
\nthey hate, watching the same old terrifying news sound-bites, and so on.  They are agitated, worried, concerned\u2014they want
\nto know growing up is worth it.  And so
\ntheir insides stir with questions while their outsides play video games and
\nwatch movies.<\/o:p><\/font><\/p>\n

\n

Curiosity is
\nthe cure to the world\u2019s restlessness.  In
\nfact, curious<\/i> is related to the word,
\ncure<\/i> (ibid).  If we would only ask questions\u2014deep,
\nmeaningful questions, inventory our lives (and ask trusted friends to help us
\ndo this), cultivate our sense of wonder, then the gray layer of dust that
\ncovers some aspects of our lives will clear. 
\nEven if we never find out the answers to our questions–the adventures of
\nsearching and exploring, of rambling through the ancient forests of our souls,
\ntraveling through the old towns of our unused talents with their wonderful old
\ndiners serving up heaping plates of steaming wonder and joy, navigating through
\nthe narrow straights of our limited beliefs towards the open, sun-dappled waters
\nof freedom, driving down the old back roads of our dreams\u2014rediscovering the lost
\ntree house or the path leading to the creek where we used to sit for hours
\nwriting poetry—these are the journeys into how we are meant to live.  Live the questions as Rilke would say.  And if the answers bloom before us or from
\nwithin us, then so be it.  And if they
\ndon\u2019t–enjoy the ride.  For through the
\npractice of curiosity you will be cured of complacency, the status quo, the
\nuninspired life.  You will become a
\nliving lighthouse for the lost and the weary. 
\nYou will, in effect, become truly alive.<\/o:p><\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

 Thank you for you kind contributions to keeping the Wonder Child Blog going<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n\"\"
\n<\/form>\n

 <\/o:p><\/p>\n

Copyright Joseph Anthony of the Wonder Child Blog<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Playing With Words Curiosity By Joseph Anthony, EFT Practitioner   Curiosity killed the cat, so the saying goes.  It also sparked every idea to improve something or to discover new ways to treat illnesses or to make better mousetraps. In today\u2019s world however, other than cats feeling annoyed at fewer mice to eat, hardly anyone […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thewonderchildblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thewonderchildblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thewonderchildblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thewonderchildblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thewonderchildblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/thewonderchildblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thewonderchildblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thewonderchildblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thewonderchildblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}