The Death of Curiosity
This is largely going to be about why I still read children's stories.
It's soul-crushing to recognise that there's a strange estrangement between what can be done, and then what is done.
And there's a good probability that you won't understand what I'm saying when I say that. A child would, naturally, that's a given. For the vast majority of those who're proudly grown-up, though, I feel there's almost a perverse enjoyment in awareness lost.
Consider: That which CAN be done, and that which IS done.
Children ask "Why?" and adults, in their infinite frustration, rattle out the preprogrammed response of "That's just how it is." which is rather morbid, don't you think? When did your curiosity die? I ask this because I was equally blessed and cursed with never having known this loss. How did yours die? Can you remember the year it happened, the transition between expressing curiosity to smiply accepting that things are the way they are?
And most do this. In fact, you likely do it as well. You'll never ask "Why?" even in a world of infinite possibilities, you'll only respond with "That's the way it's always been." No matter how diverse, varied, vivid, and magical those possibilities are.
Isn't that strange?
I see this in writing all the time. Now, a writer might be able to weave together a fantastic world, full of complexity, of truly endless wonder and infinite possibilities. They'll take such an impossible, beautiful, strange thing and what will they do with this marvellous, impossible creation? They'll set a bunch of humans down in it and task them with killing a dragon.
"Why are the heroes doing this?" "Heroes are good." "Why?" "That's just the way it is."
"How do we know that the dragon did this?" "Dragons are bad." "Why?" "That's just the way it is."
"But couldn't th--" "No, no they couldn't." "Why?" "THAT'S JUST THE WAY IT IS."
I mean, when I look at a painting of four people bursting into a dragon's lair, I don't see what you see because I'm more inclined to ask questions. What my mind concocts is a scene of home invasion, where these are bandits and hoodlums intent to steal someone's belongings and likely murder them in the process out of some insidiously racist intent.
Then we'd have to bring in the constabulary! A detective would arrive on the scene to investigate; Likely a gnome with a number of gadgets as magical as they are technological to seek out the truth of what happened in this poor dragon's home. Outisde, a griffin psychotherapist is quietly, gently consoling the dragon's parents and promising that the criminals will be brought to justice.
They've got their top men on the job, top men! Giant eagles grasping strange contraptions are canvassing the scene; The odd devices they hold in their claws being aetherial trackers, linked to the spiritual imprints left behind by the aforementioned criminal scum. They're attempting to find and follow their 'soul echoes,' in order to get some kind of idea of the direction that these sordid, sociopathic monsters went.
And what you see is a bunch of heroes killing a dragon; Simply because the heroes are good, the dragon is bad, and that's just the way it is. Why? That's just the way it is. That's sad. That's really bloody deepressing. I can't know what that's like.
I mean, I've met people who're like that. I can see the effects of it, after all. If a person shifts some historical events around in order to fashion anachronisms, they think of that as brilliantly creative. Not realising, of course, that the complexity they're utilising is that of a well understood history as opposed to anything they've fashioned. It's really not that clever at all. I was never inspired by alternate histories; Unless they're the alternate history of an already imagined world (those are fun!).
That's where familiarity comes into it, though, hmmm? Familiarity and the love thereof replaces the curiosity of the child. When one's inner-child dies, the curiosity leaves this giant, gaping void behind. Something has to fill it. Nature abhors a void, so what rushes in to fill the gap is what one knows to be 'true' and 'factual.'
Of course, 'factual' is subjective to an erudite mind. A smart scientist knows that there are no facts, only probabilities, and there is no scientific truth, only scientific proof. We can only assume we know something within a degree of probability through our observations of its behaviour, if we repeat an experiment a great multitude of times and the results never change then the probablistic factor of this being how something works within our reality is increased. That factor never reaches 100 per cent, however, as we can never rule out all other variables.
However, many adults whose curiosity has died will truly believe they know, factually, the nature of reality. This is what leads to very unfortunate cases of bad science. I could cite many examples, but I'd rather go with an obvious one that can't be denied. The desire to cure autism comes from the assumption that autism is a disorder, because that's what it is. Even though people with autism strongly disagree and would prefer to not be 'cured.' The scientist in question would still follow a cure out of their belief that autism is a disorder because, yes, 'that's what it is.' Is it? Why? Are you sure? As I've pointed out, there are many with this so-called disored who'd fervantly disagree.
Bad science, you guys. Bad science. I'm bloody old and I've seen more bad science than you could shake a stick at. It's gotten very tiresome, to say the least.
Still, my point is that hte death of curiosity leads to bad science -- and there's a lot of bad science out there. However, the brightest minds we've ever had are those whose inner-child hasn't died, instead of accepting that things are whichever way they assumably are, the mind in question asks why? Why are they this way? Or, more accuratley, why do we believe they're this way?
I've met so many people whose curiosity has died.
This is true in the creative arts as well, as I mentioned. You have these brilliantly fantastic worlds filled with possibility where truly wondrous things CAN happen, but they don't, as the writer is only focused upon what they know -- the familiar -- and they write purely about what IS, rather than what CAN be, because they've lost that spark. Their inner-child has died and they no longer possess the capacity to ask why.
You believe that things are this way in the world, why? You believe that things are this way in a fantasy world, why? Your answers will probably be oppressively depressing to me, but hopefully I'm stirring something within you that's been dead for far too long. A spark of curiosity, the will to ask why. Why did yours die?
Terry Pratchett is a great example of a writer who looked at a fantasy world and asked why. Why? Why this? Why that? Why are they behaving this way? Why are they doing that? Why aren't they taking advantage of these advances in magic/technology? Why aren't they putting to use these social structures they've developed? With all the possibilities, why is this world all about people in small wooden huts worshipping wizards in their towers? How preposterously dull! How morbidly inane! How comically nonsensical!
It shows that there's a lack of dreaming. No questions. No dreams. Simply that things are the way they are.
Bugger that.
There's a reason why PTerry was so irascible. He wasn't the friendly old man that people believed he was. Oh no. He was no smiling Santa. He was irascible, tired, fed up, and angry. He was also kind. As I approach his age, I begin to understand why as I face his challenges being a person who can ask why in a world that never, ever does.
I wouldn't be surprised if PTerry wrote Discworld out of catharsis to simply show everyone else what you could do in a world that did embrace what you CAN do with all of that potential, rather than simply writing a cloyingly familiar story about how it IS. So, so many writers fall into this pit-trap, whether fantasy or sci-fi, opting to present people with what they know instead of having the insurmountable gall needed to ask why.
And the readers, they're not as bad, they're worse! They reinforce this by clucking with offence should a writer even deign to dare to conceive the question. Yesterday it would've lead to a flurry fo angry letters, today it would result in aonther Twitter war. Why is it htis way? For most people, curiosity has died. Curiosity is only for children. Only a child is allowed to ask why.
I guess I'm a child, I suppose. I take pride in that. As much pride in the perverse pride people have in having offed their inner-child. What I can tell you is that it's lovely being able to dream, which is something that a person sans curiosity can never do. In a vividly colourful whirlwind of imaignation I can conceive worlds which aren't likely anything you've ever known or will.
Honestly, I think most people need to do DMT a few times in their lifetime. By law. Just to reawaken their curiosity and wonder.
So many problems today are caused by people being unable to ask why. And our entertainment industry is in a sorry state as it's staffed by people who never ask why fashioning the most drearily drab creations for audiences that anger at the very suggestion of why. Why did you let your curiosity die?
Curiosity isn't just for children, it's for everyone! It's a fact of life! How did this happen that we've been programmatically murdering inner-children to transmogrify our peoples from one of dreamers, philosophers, and imagineers to sleepwalking, drooling zombies who enjoy nothing more than modern day settings filled with zombies (that they can so easily relate to)?
Why? I'm asking why! Isn't that so very offensive of me? Why?
Why did you stop asking why?
This is why, for the most part, I still read tomes aimed at children over adults as they're written by people who can -- blessed be they -- ask why, for an audience which loves to ask why.
I'm currently reading the Farloft Chronicles and I'm finding it far, far more compelling than I ever did Game of Thrones. Is that insulting to you? Why?
Yes, there are adult examples out there that I could turn to but they're so rare that they're the exception that proves the rule. I've read everything by Terry Pratchett, I've recently enjoyed Out There: Chronicles (now that's a game that loves to ask why, it spent two episodes doing just that and I adored it) as well, but these are few and far between. For the most part it's all like Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings, and other works so drowned in the ichorous juices of verisimilitude I simply can't stand to read them.
Adult fantasy and sci-fi, for the most part, no longer brings me joy. I'd rather watch Voltron. There are more scientific questions asked in Voltron than in any of the dryest sci-fi I've read. And I've read some fairly dry, dusty sci-fi in my time... Unfortunately.
Voltron asks: Aren't windows in space silly? Don't they add lots of extra weight for transparent materials? What purpose do they serve in space where there's so little to see? Wouldn't they just increase the vulnerability and structural weaknesses of a craft in such a potentially hostile environment?
And so the Voltron lions and the Castle of Lions don't have windows. Their ground speeders DO have windows, though, which shows me that someone actually thought to ask why. Whmever did? THANK YOU. I've been asking that question for years.
Seriously. Windows in space. Why?
"That's just the way it i--"
Well, the way it is is insufferably asinine! Bloody stupid!
You have much better tools available to you in sci-fi than windows, use them! You could have a factory on board that produces swarms of femtotech camerabots that surround the ship and provide a 360 degree view of everything around the pilot! If some of thsoe are knocked out? The on-board factory simply produces more. And so the pilot has a complete view of everything around them and can enjoy a holographic display of everything with extra scanning doodads and the ability to zoom in!
In fact, why do pilots still look so human? In the future, we'd have the capacity to modify our bodies. Surely there are forms which are much better suited to space than the human body, so why don't we use these genetic and technological sciences to provide ourselves with better bodies? I'd even go so far as to ask: In the future, where AI is prevalent, why don't we simply dump our brain into a ship body and work with AIs and other brains to run the ship?
Who needs bodies???
Your body could be the ship! You could perceive reality as you've never done before! It would be incredible! No? Why? Honestly, why the hell not???
How irredeemably dull to deny the possibilities! I see it as a crime to not even consider what could be done, it's a cardinal sin to not use your curiosity to question what might be done with such grand tools made available to us. And yet, most don't. It's just jet fighters in space because that's just hoooow it is.
Good grief I'm sick and tired of adults.
Consider the regressive nature of TV 'toons like Teen Titans Go, how they've gone back to the comedy and simplistic animations of the '80s instead of embracing the more complex themes and interesting questions of 'toons from the '90s and early '00s. Why? I think it comes from a point of adults believing that children are just as bereft of curiosity and imagination as they are.
A flawed perception, if you ask me.
I remember some cartoons that were actually brave enough to present children with questions, they're always my favourites.
Extreme Ghostbusters tackled some interesting questions about what life is like for a hispanic person who could never afford proper education, a disabled jock who's been confined to a wheelchair, a lady who's a part of the goth subculture (and the reasosn for it), and a middle-to-upper-class black fellah. It looked at the kinds of issues these people would face and how those issues may even intermingle.
There was one brilliant episode where it turned out that a few of the friends the jock had were accepting of his disability, though they were tremendously racist. This kind of nuance between prejudices hasn't been tackled by contemporary comedic cartoons, which makes me sad.
Those cartoons asked uncomfortable questions about why people are the way they are, so children could also wonder and perhaps make better, more informed choices.
Teen Titans Go supposedly has diverse characters but it never does anything with that beyond using their diversity as a joke. Which is... disappointing, to say the least, but also so very, very typical. That's just the way things are, eh? Sigh.
So moving forward in time doesn't always lead to the kind of progression I'd find desirable, sometimes we encounter regressions when people fall back even hard on 'that's how things are,' or even worse 'that's how things were.' And never ask why.
Adults are tiresome creatures.
I'm not sure how, despite my many years, I never really became one. I've too much imagination to become a sleepwalking zombie who loves shows about sleepwalking zombies, I suppose. And that's going to make me sound like a 'special snowflake.' Funny thing is? I absolutely am. I've had to come to accept that I am, indeed, quite unusual. The thing is, though? This is true of everyone out there who still possesses curiosity.
I find that if one doesn't experience the death of curiosity, then one invariably becomes quite eccentric. Eccentric people are different, and obviously less 'usual' than someone who isn't. And they aren't eccentric because they choose to be, but simply because their curiosity never died.
At this point, I've come to see the 'special snowflake' complaint as one rooted in jealousy of curiosity. It always comes from the mouth of a person who can no longer ask why, who can only accept what they believe are the way things are. They're tremendously hateful of anyone who isn't dead inside like they are.
It's not my fault, though. I don't understand. If your curiosity died and mine didn't, I don't know why. I don't know what to tell you. It's not like I have a choice about being a 'special snowflake,' I'm simply curious and therefore eccentric. That's just who I am. I'm sorry that that bothers you. And believe me, I've met plenty of people whom that bothers. Whenever I've written a review praising genuinely creative works I've come to love I've met these people.
Thing is, though? There's no shame in being a 'special snowflake.'
It's just shorthand for how you aren't dead inside, how you're still able to ask why, and to wonder, and dream. I don't think that's at all a bad thing, myself. Your mileage may vary, I suppose, but I value it, I love it, and I couldn't go on without it. It's as integral to me as breathing.
I could no sooner stop dreaming than breathing.
