I think there’s also a third type of curiosity. The two that you mentioned sound goal-driven in a sense; you either want to understand how something works, or to fit it into a particular understanding of the world. And there’s a sense in which the curiosity gets “finished” once it achieves that understanding, and then moves on.
That’s in contrast to what I’d call “open” curiosity, which has no particular fixed goal or agenda that could be achieved. Instead it’s something like, in each passing moment, being open and curious about what will happen next rather than needing things to proceed in any particular way. I associate it with the kind of curiosity that the IFS conception of Self has, and that you might have while Circling; one that involves being aware of your fixed and normal ways of seeing the world but holding them lightly and being receptive to anything that deviates from your normal conceptions.
Unlike the more goal-driven kinds of curiosity, learning more doesn’t need to make it more challenging to maintain open curiosity. No matter how much you know and no matter how familiar the situation, you can always remember to provisionally suspend your existing interpretations and see what the situation is actually like.
I think there’s also a third type of curiosity. The two that you mentioned sound goal-driven in a sense; you either want to understand how something works, or to fit it into a particular understanding of the world. And there’s a sense in which the curiosity gets “finished” once it achieves that understanding, and then moves on.
That’s in contrast to what I’d call “open” curiosity, which has no particular fixed goal or agenda that could be achieved. Instead it’s something like, in each passing moment, being open and curious about what will happen next rather than needing things to proceed in any particular way. I associate it with the kind of curiosity that the IFS conception of Self has, and that you might have while Circling; one that involves being aware of your fixed and normal ways of seeing the world but holding them lightly and being receptive to anything that deviates from your normal conceptions.
Unlike the more goal-driven kinds of curiosity, learning more doesn’t need to make it more challenging to maintain open curiosity. No matter how much you know and no matter how familiar the situation, you can always remember to provisionally suspend your existing interpretations and see what the situation is actually like.