Curiosity is the Receptor, Understanding is the Stimuli

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The more questions one has floating around in their mind at any given time, the more knowledge can be harvested from day to day experiences. Knowledge and understanding are being presented in every experience, but unless you have the appropriate curiosity associated with that presentation of information, nothing will be gained.

People who lose their curiosity early in life are like nerve damage victims who can no longer feel heat on their fingers. Once you lack the receptor it doesn’t matter what you’re exposed to.

So basically, you need two things to be able to expand your mind. You need to have questions and/or curiosity, and you need to have experiences that are charged with learning potential. As one or both go down, you become limited in terms of intellectual growth.

This is why fostering interest and curiosity in young people should be a primary goal of our education system. We can always expose people to more things later in life, but if they lack the ability to benefit from those experiences due to curiosity receptor damage done as a child, then we’ve already failed them.

[ Sep 27, 2007 ]

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