So just before sundown the other evening, I found myself in the yard, watching my kittens wandering around in the scrub.
They are almost six months old already, so perhaps I should start calling them cats … I don’t know.
But their playfulness hasn’t subsided at all and their energy levels are endless and worthy of such envy. They always seem to be up to something.
The images at the end of this blog are of Everest and Beauty, two sisters, as they hung out near where I put out the raccoon and possum food each evening.
Their curiosity and interest in everything around them is energizing to witness, possibly because most of us are so jaded by everything, we become oblivious to what a wonderful world this is.
This is the thought that developed in my head as I looked through some of the images this morning. And it began with the phrase “Curiosity killed the cat”, a phrase that I have know since I was a child and just hangs as an unspoken fact somewhere in the back of my head.
The phrase was coined in 1598 in a play by Ben Johnson and the message was clear: don’t poke your nose into things that aren’t your business.
But the more I thought about that, the more I realized how counter that runs to everything I believe in.
Curiosity is a fundamental part of exploration and experimentation. It drives innovation like nothing else.
My own humble efforts in experimenting with images hinges on a curiosity of “I wonder what it would look like if …”
So, why would this phrase have become part of the standardized vernacular?
Yes, it is cat-chy (pun intended) but there is a lot more to it than that.
For centuries people have been groomed to know their place and not step above their stature in life.
Keeping things on a need-to-know basis has been a fundamental part of class-distinction. It is designed to keep the poor poor and the rich rich.
So, from an early age we are told to stop asking too many questions. Children have an innate need to know “why” and that need is extinguished in many by a relentless barrage of obstacles to learning or just silence and ignorance.
As schools become college and college becomes work, we are made feel less confident in asking a question and fear ridicule for not knowing already.
This is a system developed to cap learning and stunt curiosity.
Religion plays a big part in this grooming with its endless emphasis on faith and belief rather than answers and proof.
Questions are sacrilegious if they are deemed to threaten the foundations of faith of these churches. Don’t question, just accept.
Governments are built on control of the masses. Rules and laws put in place to confuse and stifle. Legal jargon becomes the norm and fairness plays no part in our lives.
Even online services hide behind endless agreements of many thousands of words that are designed to confuse and overpower, so we all just hit “Accept” on the terms and conditions without even reading the first few paragraphs.
Who knows what we are agreeing to?
Even though we have been groomed away from it, curiosity is obviously a trait that we admire in creatures like kittens. Just like I did yesterday evening, we stand and admire, smile at, even laugh when they slip off the log and fall on their asses.
But falling on your ass sometimes is exactly what you need. It is how you learn and find a better way to climb whatever obstacles lie in your path to learning. So, never be afraid of that.
Whenever I am encouraged to stop asking questions of something or someone, it immediately makes me wonder what they are hiding. And trust me, anyone that wants you to stop asking , most definitely IS.
Blind faith should be left to those that are just that … blind. You are not a doubting Thomas just because you are looking for more information and something that resembles proof.
On the contrary, your innate nature is to be curious. If you don’t believe me, spend time watching a toddler “getting up to mischief”. We shape their world around them and guide them as best we can. But we often smother their curiosity in the process.
Kittens don’t have that smothering, which is why as cats they are still devilishly curious. There is no limit to their curiosity and exploration. Which is why every closed door is merely a challenge to them.
None of my cats accept a closed door. They may have been on the other side a hundred times already, but they rush through its opening as if it is their first time.
Nor should we.
Whenever we are faced with a closed door, ask why. Ask what is behind it. Ask how do I open it. Keep asking. Don’t stop. And one day that door may just open enough to let you run freely through!
… just a thought!
