Childish curiosity
Curiosity can be a very good thing. It can also be incrediby frustrating. To me, curiosity is like the opposity of apathy, and while I'm generally not a big fan of apathy, there is a time and a place for it. Right?
What makes either curiosity or apathy bad? Well, we might think that our curiosity is misplaced when it is not realistic that we will find an answer: curiosity becomes "bad" when we experience a negative feeling like frustration. We might think our apathy is misplaced when we notice missed opportunities: apathy becomes "bad" when it gets in the way of a positive feeling like understanding. But I don't think things are always that clear-cut. I think that curiosity can be bad even when it leads to positive feelings, and I think that apathy can be bad even when it doesn't prevent us from a positive feeling.
I wonder how much curiosity and apathy hinder us from living a healthy life. Misplaced curiosity can be very, very bad. Misplaced apathy can be very, very bad. I can pinpoint situations in my life (both in the past and present) where I wish I felt more curious towards certain things and more apathetic towards others. But there is a balance to strike. To me, the danger of curiosity is that it can lead to obsessive attachment, and the danger of apathy is that it can lead to protective detachment. Now, I don't think that either trait is fundamentally bad; it depends on the situation. After all, the world would be dull and static without curiosity and frantic and competitive without apathy.
I also wonder how much curiosity and apathy interact to allow us to live a healthy life. Perhaps they serve as sources of positive and negative feedback in a regulatory system. For example, when I discover a new idea X, feelings of curiosity may lead me to seek out more information on X. As I build up information on X, my curiosity is more satisfied and apathy begins to settle in -- not necessarily apathy about X itself, but perhaps apathy about learning more about X. As conditions change, however, it might be wise to reevaluate X -- and so curiosity kicks in again. It is easy to imagine how not having sources of either positive or negative feedback can be dangerous: if I only have curiosity, I become obsessive about X. If I only have apathy, I am never motivated to formulate ideas about X or reevaluate previous ideas when the environment changes. There's a healthy way in which these two things interact, but the balance may change depending on the subject X itself. It's probably good for me to be aware of what X's bias me more towards unhealthy curiosity and which bias me more towards unhealthy apathy.
Well, I started this post by feeling the need to explore my thoughts on this subject...and now I'm pretty much feeling like I don't want to write/think anymore about it for now. There you have it, folks -- this post is brought to you by the interaction of my own curiosity and apathy. Enjoy!
posted by Katie @ 8:28 AM
14 Comments:
Some questions:
1) What are the attributes of a "healthy life?"
2) Do you think that your feelings affect your health as much as, or more than, how you act?
3) Why do you prefer to focus on a healthy life rather than, for example, a full life?
-- Brian, who is curious. ;)
Hm, I can already see it: you're going to be that person at my dissertation defense who innocently asks the impossible questions, aren't you? AREN'T you? ;) I'll do my best though:
1) Different people have different views of a "healthy life." For me, a healthy life is one in which I am actively pursuing a solid relationship with God and with others. Personal health (mental sanity, lack of physical illness) are nice but may not hinder me completely from my primary goals, and are (or at least should be) secondary.
2) My feelings and my actions are sometimes distinct but are often intertwined in ways that I might not even realize until later. I think that feelings and actions feed into each other, and therefore it's difficult to partition the effects of each on health. Hm, maybe I'll try a path analysis sometime. :)
3) To be honest, I just threw down the word "healthy" without thinking about it too much. But I think that I often have a better understanding of what is healthy than what is ultimately fulfilling. Also, using high levels of fulfillment as an indicator of a good life strategy is not valid, in my opinion.
I suppose I would fit well into academia. ;)
1) What are your primary goals, then?
2) Of course, where I was going with this was that you can change your actions more easily than you can change your feelings. Thus, I tend to prefer to focus attention on actions. Your mileage may vary.
3) I would actually draw a distinction between "full" and "fulfilling," the latter term being more nebulous. I personally would consider myself to have had some success if I could live what I consider to be a full life, without necessarily living what I consider to be a healthy life. Once again, your mileage may vary. But it raises the question of what are indicators of a good life strategy if not personal health or fulfillment.
Yes...try not to analyze that too much today. ;)
1) Should have made this more explicit in my last comment: My primary goal is to be actively pursuing a solid relationship with God and with others.
2) Yes, it is often easier to change actions than to change feelings. However, I view that as a good first step. If you can work to change your feelings, it will be helpful in the long run. This advice is circumstance-specific, though.
3) Any suggestions, anyone? :)
Don't worry, I'm not going to go enter a PhD program or anything silly like that. ;)
1) So, let's apply the transitive property. Solid relationships are what define a healthy life. Your primary goal is to have solid relationships. Therefore your primary goal is to live a healthy life? Would that not then make health an indicator of a good life strategy as in #3?
2) In my experience, you can't change your feelings except through your actions. To paraphrase someone, if you do what you've always done, you'll feel what you've always felt. To me, trying to change one's feelings to change one's relationships is like trying to move a book from a shelf to a table by changing the laws of gravity.
3) My indicators are things like weighted percentage of time spent enjoying life and the degree to which my presence has a net positive impact on the people around me.
I would post a more meaningful comment, but I'm feeling pretty apathetic right now. Maybe tomorrow curiosity will drive me to seek a response from you.
Dang it, having read the comments, I actually have to speak up, because I take issue with Brian's "change actions to change feelings," and if there was a social psychologist (or even any psychologists) around, he's probably throw a fit.
Social Psychology talks about attitudes, behaviors, and cognitions (they use big words just so they can say ABC, I swear)... and then as we all know, cognitive dissonance is when these don't all play nice and agree.
But nowhere is it written you have to change B to change A or C. Maybe B and C get along great ... take a child eating his vegetables. He knows they're good for him 'cuz mommy says so [C], and he actually does it [B], but he doesn't really like it [A]. You suggest he change [B] to change [A], but then he's left with dissonance because he knows they're good for him. Instead, he should try to bring [A] into line with [B] and [C].
Now let's graduate to more complicated examples. Say Katie feels very discouraged by research lately. Maybe she's been stuck on something or not making progress at a rate she'd like. So she's been neglecting it, instead playing Tetris for hours on end and writing lengthy blog posts and comments. She knows [C] she has to do research in order to accomplish a goal.
You suggest she should just do more research (change [B]). But that wouldn't do anything for [A]. In fact, it might even change [A] for the worse if the research is done with the current attitude and the research continues to remain unproductive. Instead, if she tries to change [A] first, she can then return to doing more research [B] and will likely want to, or at least won't be viewing it as a drudgery.
< /soapbox >
Actually, Carl, I was thinking more along the lines of changing [D] to change [A], where [D] is some arbitrary activity that may or may not have any direct relation to [B] or [C]. My point is that trying to manipulate feelings and attitudes is difficult to do directly; rather, feelings and attitudes change as a result of circumstances. In contrast, behaviors are relatively easy to change, and new behaviors provide new stimuli that affect attitudes. Does that make any sense?...
...and if I interpret A, B, and C to mean attitudes, behaviors, and cognitions as I now suspect you meant, then what I mean is that they are all interrelated, but changing A without changing B or C is very difficult to do.
I think I agree with Brian. I think there are multiple actions which can be changed (e.g. Carl's example is too limited in that while a particular B is bad, it does not follow that some B is not necessary to change feeling properly.)
I'd probably expand actions to include thought patterns, but generally I think feelings are indirect results, not direct consequences of our choices.
I don't have anything worthwhile to contribute to this particular post. I just want to say, Katie, besides your posts, your comment board provides me with endless entertainment, if one could call it that! I love it :)
I think ya'll are putting way too much effort into this one. Not that I advocate a Paris Hilton-esque "simple life," but I'm of the opinion that life can be a lot happier if we just stop over-analyzing it or expecting too much out of it.
I guess that makes me apathetic, to a degree. :)
I'm going to have to go with Sarah on this one. Of course, I was also the person who would sit through an English class and say "what if the author wrote the book just to write it and didn't mean anything by it?"
On a side note, Katie, I love reading your thoughts and all the comments that come out of it; they're all insightful.
PS. Lets go State! (sorry, had to get that in)
I have to say I side with Sarah on this one too. ;) Maybe I'll be less "apathetic" if I get enough sleep every day for an extended period of time, lol.
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