On curiosity’s kryptonite

My kids are kind—the best of both their mother and me—but they're kids, and they often cut each other off with "I know." A typical conversation:

"Hey, I found that—" 

"I know," says the other not looking up from their phone. 

Or, "Did you know—" 

"Yeah"—without moving so much as an eyebrow in the direction of the other. 

It's usually the response of an older to the younger because the younger CANNOT tell them anything new. Nothing. Nada. Nyet.

I feel frustrated because I'd like to say "Shut up and listen!" but the thought no sooner steps up to my lips before I recognize the same is present in myself. So, I try a gentler approach.

Hey, give ‘em a moment. He just wants to be acknowledged. He's not infringing on your intellectual abilities.

Et cetera. An eye roll meets me. I did the same thing last week when a LinkedIn post mansplained that “breakthrough idea” that Epictetus shouted in his Nicopolean school two millennia ago, which he attributes to Plato, who gave credit to Socrates, who said he got it from a woman in Mantinea.

Ah, the life of seeing our hypocrisies. There’s no shortage of personal work to do. Thank goodness!

Photo by Fares Hamouche on Unsplash

Ignorance is not the enemy of knowledge. The appearance of knowledge is. When we think we know without hearing someone out or testing the information we encounter, we accept the appearance of knowledge for the real thing and perform the greatest disservice to ourselves possible: we remove the opportunity to learn.

But we also miss out on something else: the opportunity to be amazed. To marvel. To extend our curiosity to the present. 

Recent conversations with the SBNR community have seen "mystery" popping up often. I check myself in these conversations because “mystery” snags a whole host of word images for me: μυστήριον, the Eleusinian mysteries, hierophant, ritual, relics, 1 Corinthians 15 and the presence of mystery cult language within the New Testament. I’m just getting started, but I don't want to be that asshole know-it-all denigrating their conversations simply because I've studied mystery and its origins in the ancient world. Plus, I know that the urge to assert myself is my own fragility: I see an opportunity to colonize this conversation and establish it as my own territory.

Atrocities have been committed by fragile white men.

Reign it in, Michael, and listen. You’ve got something to learn.

What’s more fun is to recognize how amazing it is that an idea like this is able to survive millennia and still intrigue us! Listening closely and curiously to what this valiant soul has to share can only benefit me.  

Recently, the roles that people played in ancient mystery cults have inspired me, and the initiate is currently of most interest. The only ingredient for the initiate was curiosity. Willingness to be initiated followed. It’s the perspective that recognizes personal ignorance and the guide’s expertise. A response that says, "Tell me more!" Nothing encourages conversation more than bypassing one's own appearance of knowledge by encouraging the person facing them to say more: “Explain. I don’t understand.” This is the attitude of the initiate in ancient mystery religions. 

Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

One of my favorite images of this attitude appears in Plato's Symposium where Socrates tells the story of being initiated into the mysteries of Eros. Guests have come to the house of Agathon to celebrate Agathon’s most recent victory in a tragedy contest, and one of the guests suggests that they send away the courtesans and take turn hearing speeches (encomia) in praise of Eros. Smarts instead of strippers—that's what they're going for. They all agree, as the story goes, and the guests select the following to each provide an encomium of Eros: Phaedrus, an Athenian aristocrat; Pausanius, a lawyer; Eryximachus, a doctor; Aristophanes, the comic playwright; Agathon, the tragic playwright and host; and Socrates, the philosopher. Alcibiades, a notorious individual, will elbow his way into the room and offer his own, and this gives Plato seven speeches—a number of completion.  

Socrates—some will not be surprised to hear this—balks at giving a speech because he prefers asking a willing participant questions that generate a conversation. So, he cheats. Instead of giving a full-on speech, he tells the story of a certain woman named Diotima initiating him into the Erotic mysteries, and the allusions to the Eleusinian mysteries persist throughout. His speech, however, is a fascinating conversation on what Eros is complete with myths that Plato has contrived for this dialogue. There are good reasons why this dialogue is a favorite, but my interest in sharing is Socrates' attitude. Here are several examples from his “speech”: 

‘[To possess the good forever], then, is the object of love,’ said Diotima. ‘Now, how do lovers pursue it? We'd rightly say that when they are in love they do something with eagerness and zeal. But what is it precisely that they do? Can you say?

‘If I could,’ I said, ‘I wouldn't be your student, filled with admiration for your wisdom, and trying to learn these very things.’

And another:

‘How do you think you'll ever master the art of love,’ asked Diotima, ‘if you don't know [what causes wild animals to be in such a state of love]?’

I replied, ‘But that's why I came to you, Diotima, as I just said. I knew I needed a teacher. So tell me what causes this, and everything else that belongs to the art of love.’

Socrates' curiosity is not difficult to see, but it’s amplified by the fact that Socrates runs with highest members of Athenian society and is—most of the time—appreciated by them. Yet, he is willing to be initiated by a woman, the lowest rung in Athenian society. He senses wisdom she can pass on to him provided he only remain attentive and curious.   

“That’s why I came to you, Diotima.”

Photo by Jeremiah Lawrence on Unsplash

A clear parallel exists between Socrates and young children who do not have an appearance of knowledge to trip them up. Their wide-eyed wonder shows itself in gasps of incredulity and shrieks of delight. A walk to a park can take hours: they stop at every ant to watch it work and every beetle to see where it's going. Squirrels darting from ground to trunk to limb to another tree's limb—it's just too much. Parents are wiped by the time the park comes into view while kids are just getting started. At some point, however, the posture towards curiosity fades. At least the unashamed posture with eyes wide and mouth agape. “Too cool for school” jettisons “wow.” Ants are invisible, beetles are banal, and squirrels are too prevalent to notice. I’m speaking of myself, too. I’ve countered it most lately by practicing mindfulness and gratefulness, but fostering wonder is a tedious process. Thinking that we know is a type of blindness that is content with familiarity instead of a closer look, opinions instead of questions, and the destination instead of the journey.

That’s the enemy of learning and knowledge and wisdom.  

I'll tell you this for certain, says Jesus in Matthew 18. Unless you turn and become as children, you won't ever enter the kingdom of heaven. 

If this meditation is meaningful at all, however, I’d encourage you simply to cut yourself some slack and renew your efforts to be curious. It’s what I’m doing. Familiarity is probably key to our survival as a species: we have to make our environment familiar so that we can focus on what keeps us alive. Today, that translates to making sure kids are fed, groceries are in the pantry, and toilets get cleaned. Wonder demands time—our time. We must look past the familiar at the unfamiliar, past the image of the human who sits across from us every day at the breakfast table to see the intricacies of what makes them who they are. There are times to survive, but mystery offers the opportunity to switch from surviving to . . . I must come up with a different word than “thriving.”

Until then, I’ll leave it at this: mystery is the language of those who want to transcend survival.

U2. “City of Blinding Lights.” How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, Flood, Crist Thomas, and Jacknife Lee, Hanover Quay Studios , Dublin.