The Price of Curiosity
What "following your bliss" requires, suffering's relationship to growth, and how to measure your life
Early last week, I had a conversation with a friend who was asking me for advice on what course to take in his next semester at graduate school. Naturally, each course fell into a standard, near universal pattern: there was a “safe” choice - one that fit with his prior experience, and a reasonably well-established field that may go some ways to him “getting a job”. On the other hand, the other one was a subject I’ve seen him show an abiding interest in. If there’s one thing this guy has worked on his entire life, it’s been this. But of course, it doesn’t fall into the canon of “good”, “respectable”, “lucrative” career choices. Still, I felt a pronounced difference in his tone when he talked about this one. I told him to indulge his curiosity and go with this.
Why? I was drawing from the well of my own experience.
My friend
writes that “your professional suffering is directly proportional to your future potential”. It manifests in the things you find interesting, the things that effortlessly hold your attention.Over my sabbatical, I’ve had the chance to visit long dormant interests and go deep into them. I’ve been able to indulge my need for space and time to just be, to sink deep into the neutral zone of transition, to respect my own deep-seated need for introspection, reflection, and to process several life changes I’ve been through over the past few years. I’ve done a range of interesting things, some of which have been stewing in the back of my mind for a long time. For example, I’ve tried yoga, breath work, attended a workshop on mushroom cultivation, earned a qualification in wine, and began Total Immersion swimming lessons. I’ve read a number of books. I’ve made some beautiful connections online.
But I know why I went on sabbatical: the need for it had been brewing for a long, long time. Eventually, one of my friend’s warnings was prescient:
Now, I think - why must it come to this? Why can’t we respect our curiosities and pursue them - as far as possible - in our day to day lives, before it comes down to a personal crisis?
I realised quickly that I’m asking this question from a position of privilege. So this post is about what it takes to follow your curiosity.
Following your innate curiosity has two prerequisites.
First, wealth.
The ability to follow your curiosity requires a degree of privilege, a reasonably stable seat fairly high up on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Let’s be straight: you can’t “follow your bliss” if you don’t know how you’re going to make rent.
But what if you’re someone who has reached a position that allows you to follow your curiosity? Would you do it?
Too much of our culture has been subsumed by a zero-sum status game, mostly defined by numbers. How much money we make becomes our sole competitive metric. What my friend Tom Morgan calls an extreme fitness landscape - think the Wall Street banker, Big 3 consultant, or Silicon Valley engineer - can become a trap after a point, leaving many people “stuck” in these environments.
It’s hard to sacrifice immediate rewards and climb down from your local maxima, the top of your current hill. But locating your global maxima - the place where you’re optimally situated - requires meandering. Sometimes, it even requires a climb down.
“Working even a good job cramps your sense of possibility, imposes narrow objectives, and eats away at the little things that could grow into big things if they weren’t so oppressed by the rigors of existing structure…The world is full of ideas and opportunities to explore, but it takes time outside of structure to even adjust your eyes to the landscape of possibility…” - Quit Your Job, Palladium Magazine
There’s another danger with an extreme fitness landscape, which is the default assumption underpinning it. It’s an insidious and tempting one: more is automatically better.
I came across this passage in
’s The Pathless Path, in a section that emphasises the importance of defining what your “enough” is:“If we don’t define “enough”, we default to more, which makes it impossible to understand when to say no.”
Reading this also reminded me of a quote from Carl Jung:
“The world will ask you who you are, and if you do not know, the world will tell you.”
If you don't define what’s enough for you, you’re likely to become trapped in a situation optimised for safety, but lacking vitality.
Consider how quantifiable metrics seem to have infiltrated nearly every aspect of our lives, such that we’ve forgotten to pay attention to a whole world of things that escape measurement. Perhaps the greatest wisdom successful investors can impart is that some things can only be earned, not bought. Consider the definitions of wealth by two of them:
Nassim Taleb’s idea of true wealth:
“A calm mind, a fit body, a house full of love - these things cannot be bought. They must be earned.” - Naval Ravikant
It’s clear following your curiosity is not just about having wealth. The second prerequisite is courage.
Taking a leap of faith means you are stepping into the unknown. This brings me to the real price of curiosity: uncertainty.
“…But if we are to solve the bigger structural, spiritual, and intellectual problems which aren’t addressed by existing institutions, someone needs to be exploring off of the established road, where there is a high probability of failing to accomplish anything at all, and a significant probability of discovering and exploiting the next big breakthroughs.”
“This is part of why we need an active leisure class in society. Productive exploration requires the application of skilled personal judgment to chasing hunches and interesting problems without narrow material and objective constraints. It is generally unfair and wasteful for this to be anything but voluntarily self-funded, though some well-designed research institutions can effectively simulate productive leisure and accelerate the exploration process. Thus, speculative exploration is a special duty of those with means.” - Quit Your Job, Palladium Magazine (emphasis mine)
I think one of our biggest losses as a culture is the art of dancing with the ambiguous, the paradoxical, the contradictory, and the uncertain. It’s a strange paradox in and of itself. We balk at discomfort of any kind, easily giving up at the first signs of frustration. At the same time, we celebrate the minority of outliers for their ‘hustle’. The dominant cultural message of ‘self-care’ has become a problematic, double-edged sword. On the one hand, it has encouraged an overdue, substantive public conversation on mental health. On the other, it has condoned and perhaps exacerbated an epidemic of self-medication, born of an existing aversion to difficulty and pain.
We are so bent on escaping discomfort, that even the slightest bit of it seems to produce an automatic reaction to numb ourselves out. Psychologist Jonathan Haidt points out that this situation has been taken to an extreme with newer generations of children, whose parents seem to want to prevent them experiencing even the slightest unpleasantness. I’ve been re-watching the legal drama Suits and it struck me to see the proclivity of the characters to pour a drink in an emotionally challenging situation. I think this particular cultural malaise comes from the myth of arrival, and the idea that happiness is a state we must constantly cultivate, rather than something that emerges as a by product of meaningful actions (however difficult or challenging they may be).
We need to learn to sit with our emotions - the full range - and be curious about them. From where do they arise? And how might we listen to what they’re telling us about ourselves?
This passage from Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning has stuck with me:
“What was really needed was a fundamental change in our attitude toward life. We had to learn ourselves and, furthermore, we had to teach the despairing men, that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us.
We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life - daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.
These tasks, and therefore the meaning of life, differ from man to man, and from moment to moment. Thus it is impossible to define the meaning of life in a general way…No situation repeats itself, and each situation calls for a different response…
…Sometimes the situation in which a man finds himself may require him to shape his own fate by action. At other times it is more advantageous for him to make use of an opportunity for contemplation and to realize assets in this way. Sometimes man may be required simply to accept fate, to bear his cross. Every situation is distinguished by its uniqueness, and there is always only one right answer to the problem posed by the situation at hand.
When a man finds that it is his destiny to suffer, he will have to accept his suffering as his task; his single and unique task. He will have to acknowledge the fact that even in suffering he is unique and alone in the universe. No one can relieve him of his suffering or suffer in his place. His unique opportunity lies in the way in which he bears his burden.”
We feel pain because we know something’s wrong. If we didn’t feel pain, we wouldn’t feel the urge to course-correct. There is value to this feeling, despite it unpleasantness.
I would never wish unwanted pain or suffering of any kind on anyone. But if nearly all the major religions unanimously acknowledge that life is suffering, then perhaps it’s worth considering whether it is indeed an inescapable reality, necessary to our growth.
My culinary and travel hero, Anthony Bourdain, gave the following advice in one of his last interviews:
“Be open to experience, be willing to try new things, don't have a rigid plan, accept random acts of hospitality without judgment or fear, don't be afraid to wander, don't be afraid to eat a bad meal, if you don't risk the bad meal you never get the magical one.”
As a person who’s done a fair share of ‘good meal’ hunting, I know this first hand. The good meals are far less enjoyable without the contrast the bad ones provide.
Can’t the same be said of life then? If life were one endless buffet of good experiences, we’d all be numbed out and bored. It seems to me that a lot of us who’ve been lucky enough to enjoy this age of abundance, already are.
Suffering and pain may provide the contrast necessary for us to gain a better, more complete perspective.
Let’s be clear: I’m not advocating for masochistic self-flagellation. Nor that suffering - especially in its starker varieties - is something to be celebrated. I’m saying that if you’re experiencing pain or suffering, it may contain within it the seeds for your growth.
There *may* even be a biological basis for this.
Talk of the benefits of exercise is rife with ‘endorphins’, the feel-good chemicals your body produces after a period of exertion. After using saunas for the first time this year, I came across dynorphins:
“The reason why you should care about dynorphins is that when they are triggered, they sensitize your entire opioid system rendering your cells more receptive to "endorphins" afterward. This is why you feel euphoric, relaxed and relieved after a hard workout. Some people refer to this feeling as "the runners high".
The biological interplay between those two molecules is something we often expressed intuitively when we say things like "no pain, no gain", "no guts, no glory", "no success without suffering". We understand that discomfort now can provide some positive effects later.”
So pain may even be good - and one might argue that taking it on voluntarily may be even better than being slammed with it out of the blue.
Looking at my own career, for example, if I did not have any of the low moments I’ve had, I may not have appreciated the good ones. What’s more? The good ones were great, but terrible for my character. They left me cocky, entitled, arrogant. The low moments cultivated an appreciation for the role of the world outside myself, and variables I couldn’t control - colleagues, my organisation, team, market, industry - what most successful people call “luck”. These moments cultivated grace.
My own words from a previous post:
“It’s hard to admit that much of my earlier successes were predicated on nurturing, kind environments, patient, understanding, and mature bosses, co-operative colleagues, and the affordances of relative independence and autonomy. In an environment that didn’t allow me these affordances, the tide ran out quickly on me and my personal narrative. Realising that my past success was connected with everything else and is not my own, allows for a degree of grace I haven’t experienced before.”
So, unpleasant and bitter as it is, sit with your pain, because it is teaching you something. Enjoy the ride. Don’t shut your eyes. Keep them open and receive. There is a price to be paid for following your curiosity. You trade away security and comfort. But you also come alive. Pay the taxes of such a life gladly. If you’ve stayed true to your deepest inclinations, it’s quite likely you’re on a path to flourishing.
A word about metrics.
As I’ve learned - the hard way - a good work life or career isn’t just about your “technical” skills or mastery, or how you do your job. Over time, it’s about the softer, but more important stuff, the stuff of a good life: character, patience, strategy, tact, resilience, openness, gratitude and grace - things they don’t teach you in “school” - Harvard or elsewhere, but things you learn in the school of life. They’re the soft skills that go hard. Cultivating these are the work not just of a career, but of a lifetime. They may not earn you a higher bonus or that promotion. But which game are you playing? The one in which the score is your paycheck and position, or the one whose outcomes are not quantifiable, yet firmly tangible: the people whose lives you’ve impacted through your generosity?
I’m not for a moment saying that one must entirely relinquish one’s competitive instinct. But as Warren Buffett says, there’s an inner scorecard we all need to attend to.
To be fair to Harvard, they tried. I’ve always returned to this piece, How Will Your Measure Your Life by Clay Christensen, author of The Innovator’s Dilemma. Christensen wrote this after a cancer diagnosis. I’m grateful to Professor Dwight Jaggard of Penn Engineering, who introduced me to it:
“I have a pretty clear idea of how my ideas have generated enormous revenue for companies that have used my research; I know I’ve had a substantial impact. But as I’ve confronted this disease, it’s been interesting to see how unimportant that impact is to me now. I’ve concluded that the metric by which God will assess my life isn’t dollars but the individual people whose lives I’ve touched.
I think that’s the way it will work for us all. Don’t worry about the level of individual prominence you have achieved; worry about the individuals you have helped become better people. This is my final recommendation: Think about the metric by which your life will be judged, and make a resolution to live every day so that in the end, your life will be judged a success.”
- How Will You Measure Your Life, Clay Christensen
Read/Watch Recommendations:
Watch The Prince of Egypt. I rewatched this stunning animated version of the story of Exodus. Moses displays a tendency to reject his prior life experiences as he discovers the truth of his origins and is called to a journey to free the Israelites. As coincidence would have it, I attended a church service a few Sundays ago in which the sermon suggested Moses was every bit qualified for the task: he was the Pharaoh’s foster brother and had grown up in Egypt. I found this ironic as I contemplated my own tendency to automatically reject my past career choices and decisions. Moses claims he has nothing to offer. His future father-in-law Jethro tells him that he needs to look at the world through “Heaven’s Eyes” - suggesting that we may be judging ourselves by the wrong metrics:
So how can you see what your life is worth
Or where your value lies?
You can never see through the eyes of man
You must look at your life
Look at your life through heaven's eyesRead “What Nobody Tells You” - As a keen observer of Tom’s writing over the past couple of years, I can say he’s only getting better and better. This piece also acknowledges that there may be value to suffering. What I’ve written above is just a mirror of his thinking, infused with my own influences.
“I believe your present suffering is directly proportional to your future potential.”
Read Quit Your Job - I’ve quoted generously from this piece above. If you’re one of the lucky ones who are wealthy and in a position to explore your curiosity, this piece may provide the motivation you need.
"Speculative exploration is a special duty of those with means.”
Read How Will Your Measure Your Life? - This essay by the late Harvard professor and disruptive innovation expert Clay Christensen.
“Think about the metric by which your life will be judged, and make a resolution to live every day so that in the end, your life will be judged a success.”
Thanks for reading!