Be Curious

Ask questions.  Seek answers.  Don't stop.
This seems to be the essence of Philip Leaky's seventy-plus year old life. David Brooks of the NYTimes shares his recent visit with the son of famed paleoanthropologists Louis and Mary Leakey and comes away with one exceptional example of a life well lived. 

The backdrop to Philip's life in Kenya soars with frontier-like adventures that are everyday events in the African bush.  Brooks sums up the family dynamic when he explains, "The Leakeys are the sort of people who, when their car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, manage to fix the engine with the innards of a cow."

Philip, and his wife Katy live atop a mountain in Kenya and are involved in multiple ventures that use what is around them to provide employment, appreciation, and sustenance.  Immersed in their environment,  Leaky's sense of wonder and respect for the land seems limitless.  But it is Philip's insatiable curiosity that is the focal point of the article.  He does not seem to draw a line between work and interests - he melds them so that his work is comprised of improving and questioning things that cause him wonder.  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/19/opinion/brooks-the-question-driven-life.html?_r=1&src=ISMR_AP_LO_MST_FB

This makes me wonder how much do I nurture my curiosity?  How much do I nurture curiosity in my daughters? In this 21st century moment, does curiosity get enough attention and fuel? Philip Leaky, born and raised in the Kenyan bush has married his nosiness with action resulting in many successes and I imagine an equal number of failures. Is this possible while living in suburban Philadelphia? 

I read and re-read the article trying to untether myself from Leaky's exotic locale so I could focus more on his motivation. Curiosity is not a location based drive.  We all have it. How much do we use it?  I recall my youngest daughter's questions about our car when she was a toddler. I called it our version of NPR's show 'Car Talk' because every single time we drove together for a few months she asked question upon question about how our car worked.  She was relentless, even in light of my weak answers. 

That's the beauty of having an inquiring mind - the answers don't drive you, the questions do.  (Now that she is 16 with a learner's permit, we are in a different stage of car questions like "Can I drive?")

Those early years contain the percolating persistence of questions like who, what, when, where and why.  This perfect cocktail blending expression and curiosity fuels young toddlers as they find their voice and spend the majority of their early conversation in questions and observations.  Philip Leaky never submerged this primary drive. 

I wonder how much I have asked "What do you think?" or "Why do you think this is so?" not only of my kids but of myself? While Philip Leaky's life has not one similar ingredient to mine in time and place, we share the primordial human instinct of curiosity.  I marvel at how accessible this makes his remarkable life. 

While he literally sits atop a mountain in his wonderment, Leaky is an active life participant.   Contemplation combined with action works anywhere, not just in the far reaches of Africa. Brooks has managed to write about Leaky's remote life as an example of how we all have power to exercise our inquisitiveness.  This article reminds me to place curiosity at the forefront of my thoughts and actions and to nurture/appreciate it in others.