I’m just curious

I was driving by a mall recently and noticed a bunch of streamers hanging on a lamppost with a rather compelling image of a man in a trenchcoat (similar to those guys in mafia movies who have something hidden under their coats) asking the question "Curious Ka ‘No?" It turns out, it was a streamer introducing a new Coke variant on the market – Vanilla Coke.

I was quite intrigued by the message that I ended up getting a can of Vanilla Coke. "Kind of an unusual mix," I thought to myself. To a certain extent the campaign worked. Curiosity got the better of me.

And why not? Anyone who goes to me, "Psst, you wanna know what’s in the bag here?" automatically catches my attention or anyone’s attention for that matter. Being curious is human nature. In fact, it’s animal nature in general. Remember the saying "Curiosity killed the cat?" Just goes to show that every living thing with a brain is under curiosity’s "gripping spell."

That’s a good thing. Curiosity may have killed the cat – but hey, if the cat didn’t try to satisfy its curiosity, it would have probably ended up crazy anyway or killing itself. Curiosity is a powerful force. It’s the itch of the brain. You feel the compelling urge to scratch it. Look at Michael Jordan. He was curious if he still had it. And now he’s still playing. Curiosity is the fuel of dreams. In fact, if it weren’t for the curiosity of people in the past, our world simply wouldn’t be the same.

Think about it, do you think there would be any interaction at all between countries today if cavemen and tribes in the early days weren’t curious enough to explore other territories? Do you think we’d have international trade if merchants in the olden days weren’t curious enough to explore markets beyond their shores? Do you think we’d have electricity today if it weren’t for the curiosity of a guy named Thomas Edison? Do you think America would be the superpower it is today if Columbus wasn’t curious enough to find out whether the earth was round or flat? Do you think we would have been as entertained reading the papers the past two weeks if Ruffa and Yilmaz never became curious about each other when they first met? Imagine what a different world it would have been!

Curiosity – or should I say, the ability to remain curious – is probably the one thing that separates people who stagnate in mediocrity from people who are successful. Some people’s curiosity have brought them to the moon. Others are only curious enough to watch a moon landing on TV. Our levels of curiosity could be literally a world of difference.

The amazing thing about curiosity is that it comes as a free gift – we all have it when we are born. The moment we reach around six months old, we try to grab and examine every little object that’s before us. At that age, we are curious enough to put anything in our mouth like everything is food. When we hit two years old, we reach another level of curiosity – from the remote control, to the stereo, to the razor, to the TV set to the computer – you name it, a two-year-old would want to grab it. And what fuels all this grabbing is mainly curiosity.

And you know what? The fastest development of a person is between the age of zero to two years old. I don’t know about you – but to me, that says a lot about how powerful curiosity is.

The problem with all of us is that there comes a time when our level of curiosity starts to taper off. I really don’t know why – maybe it’s because we get a bit jaded, maybe it’s also pride. When we were kids, we weren’t jaded. And we didn’t really have much pride. We asked questions relentlessly. We weren’t too concerned about our reputation. We just wanted to get some answers. There was a story that my wife told me about – a young dad telling his young son how advanced today’s computers are. He said, "You know what son? In the olden days, desktop computers like the one that you are playing with now were as big as a house." The kid thought for a moment and innocently asked, "Really? How big was their mouse?"

You see, when you’re a kid, you can ask questions like that. But let’s be honest, you would laugh, right? Because it is funny. And chances are, we all experienced asking a dumb question and older people laughing at us, and we got embarrassed. And chances are, after that embarrassing moment, you thought to yourself, "I’d better be careful what I ask next time." And that’s perfectly understandable. We don’t want people to think we are stupid. When you’re curious, you ask a lot of questions. And in today’s world, if you ask a lot of questions, there is a tendency for others to think you don’t know anything. So, in order to save our pride, we just don’t ask questions – or at least, we restrict ourselves. You see it all the time in conferences. The speaker would ask,"Any questions?" And it would take a while before anyone comes forward. As we grow older, we unconsciously stunt the development of our curiosity. And sadly, we kill the ultimate power within us – the power of curiosity.

The good news is – not everyone falls victim to this. A good number of people – in fact, the most successful people in the world – have the managed to remain curious. The entrepreneurs, in particular, have used their curiosity to fuel their drive in pursuing their business. If you ask most successful people, they would tell you they had a lot of boo-boos and foul ups before they became successful. Most of these initial failures were brought about by their curiosity on trying out different things. And yet, it is these failures that made them learn something new. Thus, it can be said that it’s these failures that eventually lead to success. Did you know that Walt Disney declared himself bankrupt before he eventually put up an empire? Did you know that Abraham Lincoln lost in around seven elections prior to his winning the presidency?

So as I sip on my ice-cold Vanilla Coke, let me ask you: Are you still curious? What are you curious about? Do you want to find the answer? There’s a world of information out there. Surely there must be something you don’t know that you’d like to know about.

Don’t get mad if I am asking a lot of questions, OK? I’m just curious. You should be, too…

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Thanks for your letters. You may e-mail me at nepomucenor@mtv-asia.com