Curiosity and the Pursuit of Originality
Does our obsession with being “original” limit our potential for curiosity?
There were many great characters in the film Oppenheimer. The people who challenged and championed the famous physicist as he barreled towards building the atomic bomb surely made it a captivating story. After the credits rolled, though, it was Oppenheimer’s curiosity that remained with me. In the first act his curiosity was a character in itself. Oppenheimer often found himself daydreaming, waking with a start from cosmic nightmares, and doing strange experiments like throwing wine glasses at a wall (maybe this is just a physics thing). The curiosity was unrelenting and unwavering. It was hungry beyond science, as depicted when he ponders Picasso and The Waste Land or with his love interests. It was the driving force behind every move he made, carrying him along in the story.
This curiosity of his was contagious and thrived when connected with others. He quickly grew a following when he went to Stanford. Other characters were enamored with him. Young, bright students followed him across campus, asking questions and challenging ideas with their own knowledge. Though Oppenheimer was at the center of these moments, he wasn’t the “boss” or the all-knowing power. He was the facilitator, the questioner, the one who made the space available for these discussions. His style of leadership allowed for rebuttals, because humanity couldn’t afford them to get it wrong. Ultimately, though he is credited as the “father of the atomic bomb” the project would not have achieved its goal without collaboration and shared information. It required citations, previous research (loved the Einstein portions of the film), and challenging what is presently understood. It required that he and other scientists let go of their egos and learn together.
If I have any science-friends reading this, you’re probably saying “duh!” but this is something I hadn’t quite grasped before. Science, in essence, is about sharing knowledge. It is not conducive to hoarding things for yourself. If it were the latter, we would not learn and grow as a population. But I feel that this attitude doesn’t always translate into other fields and maybe the rest of us have just another thing we could learn from our scientist friends.
I think that today there are many forces that work against curiosity and authentic collaboration. As a build from my previous essay about mediocre art, curiosity in its essence isn’t something that makes money or keeps the machine running. To survive, we’re encouraged to be “original”, to “merchandise ourselves” and “build our brand.” Greed and scarcity lead us to claim work as fully our own, but by focusing on being “original” we are denying the fact that we are standing on the shoulders of everyone who came before us, maybe even limiting the full potential of our curiosity. I would not be able to share these words with you without the maker of the keys I type on, the creators of Google and Substack for the platforms, the makers of the fonts and the writers of all the books I’ve read and movies I’ve watched, the music I listen to as I write. I am nothing but a compilation of all that I’ve consumed, and the sooner I recognize that, I can become a better collaborator and champion of others’ ideas. I’m free to be as curious as I want to be and share that curiosity with others.
I think this is why I have been so inspired by the Substack mentality - the writers on this platform are free to think and share because we know that we are better together than alone. This makes the term “freelance” feel even more poignant. By sharing our posts and thoughts, we can collaborate and grow, challenge and enlighten each other, and we’ll be better because of it. Ideas can’t survive without feedback, building, conversation and collaboration.
My bibliography is 31 years long, and if you double clicked on each line it would expand to every citation that came before. I think Ross Gay said it best, “All to say that maybe it is the case, of course it is, that the cover is perpetual, we are perpetually covering, we are ever citational, it is called thinking, it is called learning, it is called making, it is called being a creature with, it is our only choice. Nonpossessive undeclared citationality, which I’m gonna go out on a limb here and just call life.” (Inciting Joy - How Big the Boat (The Cover: The Tenth Incitement))
From all of this I wonder what would happen if we let our curiosity run wild. What if we weren’t inhibited by the need to make a profit, to leave a legacy, to rise to some imaginary “top” that we’ve created? What if we saw our minds as pieces in a puzzle that together can make something extraordinary? If I was able to strip away my ego and all of the efforts to impress, my need to “own” something even though I cannot claim ownership over the tools I used to reach my conclusion, maybe then I would find the unrelenting curiosity that could lead to something extraordinary.
What I’m loving this week:
Eat: I’m still thinking about the Waffle House All Star Special I had on Sunday after the Blue Ridge Relay, to be honest.
Drink: The gas station by our house secretly (or not so secretly) has a tiny sake selection. On Monday Dave picked up this sake in juice boxes that were both cute and delicious.
Watch: Shrinking has been a sleeper hit for me. Sometimes I struggle with the earnestness of it (and frankly how clean-cut many of the characters are) but it is an interesting expansion of what we know of as “therapy,” demonstrating how it’s practice can apply to every moment and relationship in life.
Listen: I really enjoyed Conan O’Brien on On with Kara Swisher. A fantastic crossover of two of my favorite podcast hosts.
Read: I learned about Laura Kennedy’s Substack thanks to a dedicated feature newsletter from the platform. Her post this week “Why Don’t You Know What You Want?” resonated with me as someone who identifies as a “gut person.” Highly recommend reading.