Home
Theme of Zoom Meeting: Curiosity
©2021
by Richard E. Gordon Last updated: June 16, 2022
email: rgordon118@tampabay.rr.com
For several questions, I have provided underlined links that will take you to
related online information. Try coming up with your own thoughts first – then
investigate the links or ignore them – whatever you wish.
If the links don’t work with just clicking your mouse arrow, hold down your Ctrl key as you click. Any problems with a link please let me know: rgordon118@tampabay.rr.com
Questions:
1. What is your definition of curiosity?
2. What’s the opposite of curiosity?
3. What are you most curious about?
4. How might curiosity be a negative characteristic? How might chatting with a curiosity-extremist be annoying?
5. Have you ever had a conversation with someone who peppered his talk with curiosity-questions that made you gag? How about all the questions in this discussion guide?
6. How might curiosity and gossip be related?
7. Under what circumstances might it be a good idea to squelch our curiosity?
8. If you were to sketch a picture exemplifying curiosity, what might it look like? Maybe you can share your drawing with our group. You might be curious to see what a goggle image search shows for curiosity. If you look at these Google images, which one is your favorite? My favorite.
9. How can parents (or grandparents) encourage children to develop curiosity?
10. Did your curiosity ever bring you more trouble than worthwhile knowledge?
11. Is our source of curiosity genetic or something only born out of our environment and life experiences?
12. How important is curiosity in the progress of mankind? Consider the saying “Curiosity is the mother of invention.”
13. Why did the first saying develop while the second didn’t? First: Curiosity killed the cat. (Maybe that’s how we got the word CATastrophe. Or FURious.) Second: Curiosity killed the dog. Or the rabbit. Or the ant. Or the elephant. Or whatever else you can imagine.
14. Has your curiosity been a positive or negative force in your life?
15. Tell us about the most curious person you have ever known or read about.
16. If youngsters show great curiosity in high school, what might be an especially good profession for them to consider.
17. If you have a very curious pet, does the pet’s curiosity delight or annoy you?
18. What new insight about curiosity grew out of our discussion? I’m just curious to know. I think if I ever get a pet cat, I’ll name it Curious. Maybe I should see a shrink because I am suffering from Curiousitis. No, maybe there isn’t such a word – yet. But perhaps I have just given birth to it right here.
Quotations:
1. Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious. Stephen Hawking
2. My favorite words are possibilities, opportunities and curiosity. I think if you are curious, you create opportunities, and then if you open the doors, you create possibilities. Mario Testino
3. Children are not only innocent and curious but also optimistic and joyful and essentially happy. They are, in short, everything adults wish they could be. Carolyn Haywood
4. Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas. Marie Curie
5. The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery each day. Albert Einstein
6. Listen with curiosity. Speak with honesty. Act with integrity. The greatest problem with communication is we don’t listen to understand. We listen to reply. When we listen with curiosity, we don’t listen with the intent to reply. We listen for what’s behind the words.
7. Why is it that when one man builds a wall, the next man immediately needs to know what's on the other side?
Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last.
The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing.
10. I think, at a child's birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift would be curiosity.
The End