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Health & Fitness

Curiousity

Is curiosity the powerful tool or something that can rob us of our happiness?

Dorothy Parker once famously quipped, "The only cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity."

While I've no doubt it was meant as a humorous statement, it is also I think a little sigh, a wistful wish for simpler times as well. Given Dorothy's troubled past I think it is safe to assume that she felt that way. You can't unlearn something once it is in your head.

I remember as a child waiting for Christmas and looking at presents under the tree, dying to know what was in them and not wanting to wait. One year, 1990 to be specific, I got a present from my Aunt Melissa and Uncle Dan in Missouri. I did it, I peeked at it. They had gotten me a CD I wanted, Steve Vai's Passion and Warfare. I felt awful. That knowledge that I knew what was coming, even though it was only one present, cast a pall on Christmas that year for me. I couldn't take it back. I knew.

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So it is that I ponder about what it is like to not know things, does a child have a happier life because he does not think about issues, finances, abstract philosophy and the like? Is it better to believe that the stars are the souls of departed loved ones rather than burning bits of matter that died out millions of years ago and their light is finally reaching Earth? This is not to imply that curious people are less happy, but is naivete a better state of mind?

This brings us, in a round-about way to religion and curiousity. A study done by Harvard showed that thinking styles greatly affected the religiosity of the subject. People who showed reflective thinking styles, created more questions leading to doubt faith in the supernatural.

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It begs the question, is there some gene that allows the disconnect between what we know to be true and possible and faith in something outside of the laws of the world. I am a connoisseur of religions, I have studied a number of them, all the major world religions included none of them rings true. I am not unique in this search, I have spoken to a number of people who have "tried on" religions and have all come to the same conclusion. It's not probable. I did not say impossible, everything is ultimately possible, but the likelihood is extremely unlikely that a greater being exists and takes a daily hand in our lives. I blame curiosity for this.

My curiosity led me to ask questions and by asking questions and getting answers I gained knowledge of facts and lost faith. I envy people with faith, I wish I had the ability to let go and let someone else take on the problems. There is of course no cure for curiosity, she's a jealous mistress that doesn't let go, keeps you asking questions and sometimes unfortunately, getting answers you don't want to know.

So, what say you about curiosity, is it a good thing, or just something to confuse us? Is it genetic, learned? I will leave you with a probably apocrophal story about the Eskimo and the priest that always struck me as both funny and sad.

There's the Eskimo and the priest, the priest telling the Eskimo about sin and going to hell and the Eskimo asks, "Do those who don't know about god and what you are saying go to hell, too?"

"Well, no...", says the priest.

"Then why did you tell me?"

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