I find that curiosity is at its
core the desire to discover truth. Yet, I also find that the more truth becomes
uncovered, the harder it is to continue with the same unfocused curiosity that
got us to this very place. Information overload rings a bell, as there is a
certain limit to where a human can specialize. Discoveries, especially new
ones, have to come from those who have developed a specialty in that field, but
as we travel further toward the essence of the truth we strive for, we forget
ever more about the world around us. To continue being curious over our
original drives, we have to abandon what we used to know. We have to forget our
childlike senses, and embrace a harsh reality where we cannot know the answer,
and as we reach closer to one solution, others become ever more distant.
The truth we often seek becomes
ever more specialized. We find facts and experiences that do not quite
accomplish what we seek, no matter how minor the differences. The more we care,
the less we can care about. Yet to avoid fixation completely abandons both
curiosity and discovery, and discovery should be what drives our evolution in
mind, spirit, and body. It must be held that absolute truth, though remaining
as the anchor of our own pursuits, is simply unobtainable by a single
individual in a single lifetime.
The question then concerns the
value of relative truth, a value which cannot be equally judged among the many,
for such judgements would come from others who also abandoned flexibility for
focus, a focus that most likely differs entirely from the subject at hand. And
even if such a conglomerate is excluded, what then? We are left with those who either
chose to focus on anything and everything, or those who chose nothing, and
neither of these kinds of people would possess the expertise to rate the value
of the relative truth a chosen few have so tirelessly pursued. So we are left
at a standstill. To reach for a truth that approaches the absolute, we must
abandon a perspective that respects that which we do not search for – all while
a perspective that appropriately gauges all relative truth, or seemingly supernal
truth, cannot exist. In truth, diverse people will hold diverse opinions about
both different and seemingly similar things.
We cannot know all things, for it
is hard enough to know one thing, and even if we could know about everything we
could discover, there can be no real consensus on the value of such discoveries
or the various truths they uncover. Thus, even if the human race had the same
level of curiosity existing within each individual (which is impossible), the
developing fixation could never be expressed in the same way. Discoveries may
become similar when we each develop similar drives, but the relative truth
derived from those discoveries can only be appropriately valued by those with
the original experience of them, and there could still be a lack of agreement
among those in a single field.
We will defend the truths we have
either uncovered or created for ourselves, and when we fail to discover
anything else, we will spend our time discrediting the ideas of others with
similar experiences. And worse yet, if another with an entirely different
background is in disagreement with the conclusion of our curiosity, then we
lash out against them and all people who exist outside of our walled-in
existence. How dare those foreign to our area of proficiency cast doubt on us
because of their own lack of understanding. Such is curiosity for all the wrong
reasons! Instead, we must shine light on our areas of knowledge, and toil away
as we attempt to represent the value such experiential truths hold for us. After
all, if we hold enough sway, a new childlike mind will direct its focus upon
our work, and become fixated on the unknowable.
