Courtney’s Opinion: Curiosity v. Luck.
They say curiosity killed the cat. I can tell you, however, that half an aspirin will kill a cat. This is a much longer story that should end with a certain veterinarian, of the great Garden State, losing his license. But I digress.
Yesterday, I had a meeting and the person I was meeting with was 15 minutes late. I was initially annoyed, then quickly relieved when I realized I had received the gift of time, and then annoyed again when they finally showed.
Once the meeting began, my goal was to get it over with as quickly as possible because I was still irritated that the quick glimmer of room on my calendar was quashed in an instant. But then the person I was meeting with, who I had never met before, was curious. And that changed everything.
The great orator and leadership guru Ted Lasso was quoting Walt Whitman when he said, “Be curious, not judgmental.” Ted uttered this gem after defeating a pompous and confident foe in a game of darts. His opponent judged Ted’s dart throwing ability to be lackluster, instead of being curious about Ted’s experience with playing darts. I recently rewatched this episode and it made me wonder: What is the best characteristic one can possess?
By the end of my meeting with the latecomer, I had a new friend. Because she was curious. She wanted to get to know me. She wanted to understand my job. And as I began to let down the walls, we quickly realized we had much in common. We laughed – a lot. She did not flinch at my brutal honesty. We had a similar career path. We were interested in doing the same work for our community.
Shortly after the meeting, as I sat down to pen this column, I chastised myself for being judgmental and not curious. This topic had been lingering in the back of my head and yet I did not practice what I intended to preach. I recognize just how important curiosity has been in determining who I am. I am a writer because I am curious. I thrive when I am peeling back the layers to truly understand a person, a place, a problem.
I have met some of my favorite people and explored some of my favorite places because of my curiosity. Without curiosity, my writing would be less than it is. (Barry’s writing talent is apparently based solely on luck.) And without my writing, my life would be less than it is. Writing is how I process my life, how I cope, how I let go of the things I have yet to say aloud. I learn something new with each column, story, and each interview. My life is finer for my curiosity.
Without curiosity, I would not live in Bluffton. I would not know what it takes to pass the firefighter agility test. I would not know what it is like to live with PTSD. I would not know my friend Jake, his wife Shannon, and their three kids. Barry and I would not be celebrating 20 years of friendship this spring if I wasn’t curious. (And boy, is he lucky we met!) I wouldn’t know that the best fresh poke bowl in the world can be found at a gas station on the island of Kauai, and the best oysters can be found in the Lowcountry of South Carolina.
If you are seeking richness in your life, ask the big questions. Listen deeply. Be curious.
Barry’s Opinion: I’m an idiot so I better be lucky
Far be it from me to slight anyone for being curious. After all, curiosity was the impulse that pulled the first simians down from the trees as they wondered what might be on the ground. Curiosity propelled us forward, our science constantly scratching that itch by finding out what lies over that horizon and beyond those stars.
But I’m no scientist. I’m an idiot.
And if you’re going to be an idiot, as I am, probably the best thing you can be is lucky.
Take, for example, the time I was attempting to remove a large branch from an oak tree at my home. Now, most people who would climb a ladder with a chain saw would do so only after administering a series of safety checks, carefully considering their approach, anticipating any issues that may arise, and ensuring that safety was paramount.
I did none of these things. Because, as I mentioned, I’m an idiot.
Instead, I scrambled up that ladder with 30 pounds of roaring impending tragedy belching out exhaust as I went. Up at the top, I carved into that branch with all the finesse of a dog going after a T-bone, hacking away in a blinding flurry of wood chips.
Then, despite my substandard attempts at arbor-ism, the branch fell away from the tree.
Well, part of it did. The rest slammed into my ladder and, by extension, me, with several hundred pounds of concussive force. Flung from the ladder like taters in a food fight, I wheeled my arms and prayed that somehow the chain saw would take a different path to the ground.
When I hit, knees first because of the aforementioned idiocy, I spun away from the ladder and looked up.
The ladder was still standing. The chain saw, still idling a throaty curse at my stupidity, somehow remained balanced on top. For a split second that stretched into infinity, I wondered how on earth that possibly could have happened. You can run the physics a million times and it will never make sense that my chain saw somehow stayed on the ladder when I didn’t.
So, the only explanation for my survival, aside from divine intervention, has to be luck. The more theistic among you might point out that the two are more or less the same. I’ll grant you that. If the universe is going to temporarily change the laws of physics to keep me from a gory death, you might as well say it was God.
I can cite countless examples of this. Granted, excessive luck is a double-edged sword. Good or bad, luck is basically just the ability to defy the odds. When it’s good, all of life’s little chain saws are held in check. When it’s bad, I find that all of my Christmas lights somehow burned out of their own accord while in storage. You take what you are dealt.
But fortunately, the little moments of bad luck only annoy me. The big moments of incredible good luck are what have kept me alive. So far. And for that, I wouldn’t trade my luck for anything in the world. Except maybe the number for a good tree guy.
