How to be more earnestly curious

It is a virtue, or at least it should be

It’s lent, I’m Catholic, and I’ve been thinking. Thinking a lot about the characteristics I value in people. People I would like to be like, I want to spend time with, and I would recommend. Traits I want to adopt and improve in myself. And what rests at the intersection of all of these is, surprisingly, curiosity.

I know it’s fashionable to talk about curiosity, so I want to make clear the kind of curiosity I am and am not talking about. I am not talking about the kind of curiosity that is interrogating things for the truth, nor the kind that leads to founding an interesting company. I am also not talking about the kind of curiosity that seems “impressive” due to a random, high-energy, history-referencing questioning pattern, in a bid to appear well-versed and spikey.

The kind of curiosity I am talking about is quiet. It follows a thread and can quietly abandon it for another. It does not take up space in a conversation; in fact, you’ll likely not notice it in conversation at all. It feels warm, slow-paced. It makes time feel like it has slowed down a little bit, almost like a certain 4th wall barrier has been broken. It likes things, but also people, all kinds. I don’t know how else to best discriminate this kind of curiosity from the former, so I will simply call it earnest curiosity.

I like this kind of curiosity. And every time I encounter it, I always feel inspired and work to become a little bit more of a better person.

I have spent the last couple of weeks thinking about why this kind of curiosity is so impactful. And I boiled it down to a few things that occur because of this curiosity. I hope that upon reading this, you not only recognise this trait in someone you know, but maybe even work a little on being more earnestly curious yourself.

The effects of being earnestly curious

• To be loved is to be known, and they make you feel worth knowing

• You always feel included

• They assume best intent and disarm you

• They give you the room to be honest

To be loved is to be known, and they make you feel worth knowing

When an earnestly curious person has a conversation with you, you feel spotlighted. Not in a “centre of attention” way, but more of a “it’s your turn” kind of way. You might be in a crowded room, an empty room or a room of 5, and they’ll make some sort of signal to let you know, it’s your turn, and they are all ears.

They ask questions based on your lead. They are not investigating you, trying to catch you out or see what you have in common. They follow your lead to find what it is you feel most happiest talking about, and give you signals - via questions - that it is okay to ramble on about this topic they don’t know about but clearly holds a special place in your heart. They will reassure you with even more questions to let you know that you are not taking up space in the conversation because what you are saying is pulling them in and revealing more threads to pull, which is fun for them!

The questions may start off generic, but eventually it’ll always lead to a question you probably haven’t asked yourself, and it’ll make you pause and think ,“Why don’t I know the answer to this? Are there more things to know about me? This could be an interesting thing to figure out….wait, am I interesting ?!?!?!”

The last time I felt this was when I was visiting a friend. She singled me out in a room of 5, and let me ramble on about my siblings and their personalities for however long. The length of the conversation was brief, but I left with questions about my sibling dynamic that made me feel like I had stories worth knowing. She made me feel interesting.

You always feel included

They make everyone feel included. Because their curiosity is earnest, they aren’t looking for the most interesting person in the room. By default, everyone is interesting to them. Their curiosity isn’t thinly veiled with “what can this person do for me?”. They probably won’t even collect your number if there’s no need to. They just like learning things, learning about you and seeing you talk about things you find interesting. And their driving belief points: you can learn anything from anyone, and everyone has something interesting to say, unintentionally make you feel included, always.

The best example of this showing up is at networking events. On occasion, when I am trying to “put myself out there”, I will awkwardly stand on the skirts of a partially closed circle of people talking and just smile, hoping that they make room for me in the circle, but don’t call on me, as I’m not interested in being judged on my “interestingness”. But they spot me, as they spot everyone eventually, and disarm me with a level of questioning and friendliness that lets me know they are just talking, to talk, not to grade. They’ll stand with me beyond the average few minutes to let me know they focused on what I’m saying, and they have time. And eventually they’ll get to the real questions they have, once they sense I believe them.

You can experience this in large events, intimate events, it doesn’t really matter the size. The consistent thing is that you will always feel like you were part of the group because of their singular interaction with you.

They assume best intent and disarm you

In general, I have found it very hard to argue, offend or snub an earnestly curious person because they just don’t notice it. My hypothesis is that, because they are led by the delight of knowing, they will simply just want to know more, instead of engaging. They don’t have much to prove or defend on the matter you are trying to put forward, so they just carry on as normal, wondering if this a thread they can pull on that will lead to interesting conversation. Once you realise this, it disarms you. Whether you wanted to aggravate them or not, you always end up feeling silly and guilty because of the earnestness of it all.

Because of this, I have observed that they often come across as very friendly, which I don’t think is actually the case. They are just interested in you and everyone else, which makes them friendly, rather than the other way around.

Disarming you can also look like making you unwilling to lead and combat with your usual beliefs, even ones you are extremely passionate about. An earnestly curious person can still have strong beliefs. The difference is that when they show you theirs, they are focused on showing you the path they took to arrive there. They are not stating their belief as a point to be made, but rather showing you all the threads they pulled to arrive at their conclusion, and are simply curious to know yours.

The best example I have of this is a person I met recently who spoke about his religious beliefs. He was Igbo, so naturally I assumed (correctly) that he was catholic, as are 99.9% of Igbos. Now, religion tends to be a little bit of a prickly subject for me, so I had already decided to disengage because I was not interested in offending or defending. He, however, didn’t actually lead with his beliefs. Rather, he led with all the religions he had tried. Islam. Buddhism. Rastafarism. And it wasn’t in a “I have read up on them” pseudo-intellectual kind of way, but in a sincere “I wanted to learn what they believe, so I joined them” type of way. Who wouldn’t want to know more? At that moment, I decided that if the conversation were to continue down a religious path, I would engage. If he wanted to preach, I would listen. At a moment’s notice, I was disarmed. It’s not that I suspended my beliefs, but rather became excited about examining them and being examined, because I, too, wanted to experience the thrill of knowing.

They give you the room to be honest

There are very few places or people in the world that will make you feel safe. Safe enough to be relaxed. To be your full self, without fear of embarrassment or mishap. But an earnestly curious person, even a stranger, has the special skill of achieving just that.

Because their agenda is to experience delight via learning, there is no checklist, grade or score they are keeping count of. There is no right, wrong or “got you!” moment. If you take them left, they will go left with you. If you say it’s right, they’ll follow the thread just to see what they find. There is no agenda. And because of this, it makes you feel like you are allowed to trip up, because the concept of “tripping up” does not exist. You can explain an idea you have been thinking about without fear that they are trying to catch you out. You can state a “fact” and publicly correct yourself if you are wrong, because you know they are not “keeping score”.

You can be an honest version of yourself because you know you aren’t being judged in a singular moment. They give you the grace to be a little inconsistent and contradictory, as truth and people often are, and as a result, enable self-progression.

Like any virtue, I believe being earnestly curious can be practiced and improved upon. I’m not yet at the levels I hope to be, or described, but I have been doing some things that I think are getting me a little closer.

Here is a list of things you can do and ask that’ll make you a little more earnestly curious:

• When you meet somebody new, ask them how they spend their time, not what they do for work. They might clarify if you meant the latter, but insist on the former. You will be surprised at the different conversation paths you can find yourself on. The person is almost always happier when speaking.

• When you are listening to them answering your questions, recount back to them the thread you are following. It makes them feel like you are following a thread you want to get to the end of, not just a bunch of random questions for the sake of it (which doesn’t make anyone really feel anything).

• Don’t optimize for trying to find common ground to talk about. It is okay to have nothing in common with someone. Following a thread, and padding it with your thoughts and questions gives the person permission to go deeper. And deeper is often a more interesting conversation, there are more threads to follow :)

• Do not let your eyes wander! Do not fidget! For the small group of people who do this not because they are looking for someone “better” to speak to, try to work on this. You don’t want to be confused with those guys.

• The next time you see someone feeling “out of the crowd,” take your time to see and talk to them. They probably feel a little out of the group, so do your best to show them how their answers to your questions are actually aligned with the group (there is a reason why they are there).

• If you ask a question, and someone omits part of the answer, follow up on it. There is a small chance it might be a sensitive topic, but a lot of the time people just assume others won’t care to know the answer. Be the person that cares to know.