Ever since my son could form coherent sentences, he started to ask questions starting with “why”. Why did he need to wash his hands? Why did he have an elbow? Why did ants live in the ground? And one of my top favorites: why couldn’t he eat his friend’s baby brother? It was as if thousands of questions accumulated in his brain while he was learning to comprehend the world around him, and the minute he knew how to verbalize them, he let them all out.
I remember my amazement the first time he asked that three-letter word. I couldn’t fathom how children as young as two could have the intellectual capacity to know that there’s a cause and effect relationship to the physical world around them. And on top of that, to wonder about what the cause is.
During my pleasant moments when I’m feeling calm and patient, and when my mind is clear, I love to entertain my son’s questions. He would ask a question, and 99.9% of the time, I could anticipate a “why?” in response to my answer. Sometimes, and only very rarely, he would stop right there. But more often than not, there would be an average of 4-5 whys until my answer proved satisfactory. It’s probably clear by now why this process needs patience and a clear mind. It forces me to dig deep into my knowledge and question things myself.
I think all of us are born with beautiful curiosity. It’s why babies stuff things into their mouths in their first few months of life to figure them out, and why they ask nonstop questions when they begin to talk. But I think at some point in time, unfortunately for many of us, that sense of wonder begins to fade. It could sometimes be the result of a bad education system that focused on delivering information to students and expecting them to regurgitate it on exams without questioning it. Or it could be a school teacher or a grownup who didn’t encourage kids to ask questions. Or perhaps it is caused by the wrong societal messaging that equates being smart to knowing the answer to everything, and so asking questions would mean the opposite of being smart. Or maybe, just maybe, we simply got so used to the world around us that it lost its wonder.
No matter what the cause is for losing our curiosity, I believe it’s reversible. Our brains are plastic after all, i.e. they constantly change to form new neural connections based on the experiences we go through and the things we learn. As I answered my son’s questions every day, I began to see a change within me. Something awoke in my brain, something that reminded me of my younger days, playing barefeet outside for hours as the sun rose high in the sky. I felt a childlike sense of awe and wonder. I realized that my curiosity as an adult had only scratched the surface, and I found myself becoming more curious. I started to approach learning in a new way, and began to ask more questions than I allowed myself before. What information did I take for granted? how could I think about things differently? and why were things the way they were? Asking those questions, especially in research, deepened my understanding to a new level, and that, in return, made me even more curious.
As I finish writing this post, I’m filled with gratitude at having learned from my son how to nurture my own curiosity again. And if I could have one wish for him, it would be that he never loses his sense of wonder, and that he would always be surrounded by people who love him and encourage him to ask questions. And I hope as he grows up, he would do the same to those around him.