Curiosity Over Criticism
Read more about why I think we should always at least TRY to choose curiosity over criticism in today’s post, leave a comment to join this dialogue, then check out today’s writing prompt.
“Be curious, not judgmental.” - Walt Whitman
Curiosity will keep you looking for answers when everyone else has already judged that there are none to be found, or worse, that there are no questions left to ask then answer. It will ensure you’re still learning, exploring, discovering, evolving, instead of standing around complaining about things as they are now, or could be, if only…
Curiosity embraces your need to know, while humbling your inner critic enough to understand that you will never ‘know’ many things, most things, and how divine and complete that is.
Curiosity will unlock the cages of your mind, those criticisms that incarcerate you in self-doubt, needless comparisons, and unfounded ideals of competition and perfection. It fosters freedom to tap into the natural world to find truth, instead of forcing meaning onto things and people that exist, or don’t.
Curiosity will keep you moving forward freely while criticism will keep you standing still, trapped and miserable.
Curiosity offers actionable hope for a future you crave and want to come to pass while releasing you from the trappings of the past and ephemeral present.
Curiosity offers peace and freedom. Criticism offers anxiety and restraint.
Curiosity for the world, others, and ourselves, sans permanent harsh judgments, permits our inner children to surface and play and ask questions about what stupefies us, intrigues us, what leaves us in awe. It reminds us how vast and amazing the world is and that all we need to do is tap into its wonders as we wander. And in this sense, curiosity keeps us creative, and is what fuels our innate, incessant, intuitive need to create anything and everything… poetry and libraries and music, and invent…
Curiosity always insists on asking “What if…,” never demanding “What is…”
Curiosity, literally and figuratively, builds bridges where there are none. It encourages us to reach out to others, to the universe, while maintaining accountability and agency.
Criticism is not understanding— it is a snapshot judgement, which can only be useful for a set and fleeting length of time. Whereas curiosity is a never-ending quest to uncover and understand things and people as they continue to evolve because, as you and I both know, the only constant, the only thing we can ever truly know, is that change is inevitable. And we are not immune to that, though we do everything to try and fight it via transient criticisms, snapshot judgments.
Curiosity persists past imagined walls, perceived walls, inside and outside the self.
Curiosity invites, it does not shut out. It expands, never contracts.
Curiosity is a journey, not a final destination. It has stops but never stops.
Curiosity allows us to tap into our common humanity without feeling the need to define what that is, what it means, because there is more than one definition for being human, and all those definitions continue to evolve simultaneously.
Curiosity is what will allow us to figure out what to do with all the data and information at our fingertips, all the temporary criticisms we design, instead of insisting or pretending we already ‘know’ it all and that we always will.
I could go on, but I’ll have to leave my musings there for today.
What about you?
What comes to mind when you see the words ‘curiosity’ and ‘criticism’?
What are your thoughts on this topic?
Complete one or both of the following sentences in the comments to join this dialogue:
“Curiosity is…”
“Criticism is…”
And don’t forget to share this post with others so they can join this dialogue too.
© This work is not available for artificial intelligence (AI) training. All Rights Reserved by K.E. Creighton; Creighton’s Compositions LLC.
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Today’s Writing Prompt
Writing Prompt: Turn Criticisms into Curiosities
Write ten critical statements, then convert those ten statements into questions that are more curious than judgemental.
Writing Tip:
Feel free to use criticisms you’ve seen in the media or online recently, or criticisms you’ve heard come from your friends or family, if you’re unsure where to start. And remember that most questions start with ‘how’, ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘when’, ‘why’, or ‘where’... and that the best questions asked tend to offer others space for genuine reflection instead of igniting defensiveness.
