Who’s the real victim, when your Deprivation Curiosity kills your Interest Curiosity?
In my STUDY, SAVOR, & SUPPORT Each Other CHAT☕️🍵, we’re doing a deep-dive into our Book Club selection! This week is Chapter 6 of BEYOND ANXIETY: Curiosity, Creativity, and Finding Your Life’s Purpose by Martha Beck.
You’ve probably heard the saying “There’s a thin line between love and hate.”
But…
Did you know there’s a thin line between curiosity and fear?
In Chapter 6: Curiosity: The Secret Doorway, MB describes how we are born as inquisitive, creative babes. When we’re kids, we explore the world and ask questions like mini scientists.
But then we get used to coloring inside the lines.
The structure and culture of our society indoctrinates us to abandon our free-flowing creative impulses.
It’s in the way we are taught to follow the rules; the left-hemisphere-dominant ways in which we are educated; and the way our institutions favor hierarchies and reward competition.
Sadly, for most people, our anxiety ramps up the older (and more socially indoctrinated) we get. Anxiety hampers our sense of safety and dampers or prevents our curiosity. And our interests are relegated to the back-burner or abandoned entirely so we can focus on winning socially, gaining approval, following rules, and getting promotions. Climbing up that ladder until we retire, and we suddenly realize our lives have passed us by.
In other words…
We’re indoctrinated to listen to and address our fears, more than follow our curiosity or creativity.
We think this guarantees we will be “successful,” but as MB hilariously illustrates, coloring inside the lines and doing what’s “expected of us” can fail — miserably:
In the early 2000s, Peter Skillman tested how well different teams would perform as a group on a creative task: to “build a freestanding tower using several sticks of dry spaghetti, one meter of string, one meter of masking tape, and a marshmallow.”
Kindergarteners out-performed adults by a mile. Especially when compared to business school students, who were far “more focused on social anxiety,” like speaking up in the “right” way, to not offend their peers. Following social norms and taking an overly rational approach is what ultimately caused them to fail. Meanwhile, the kindergartners launched themselves into the task, full steam ahead, without worrying about what their peers might think. They allowed their creativity to flow in all its messy glory, all the way to the finish line.
Why the difference? Turns out…
There are two types of curiosity:
- “Interest curiosity comes from a sense of wanting to know, the way children want to know what will happen if they put crayons in the toaster.”
- “Deprivation curiosity is a worried need to know that stems from lacking enough information to feel safe.”
We’re all born with a high level of Interest Curiosity, but our society conditions us to exhibit less and less Interest Curiosity until Deprivation Curiosity becomes the norm or even the default for us.
⭐️ Has that been your experience, growing up?
It certainly has for me. My childhood was filled with ample Interest Curiosity. But the older I got, the more pressure there was to perform academically, the more Deprivation Curiosity began to take hold.
Based on the way our society’s structured, that transition feels inevitable. When there’s pressure to perform and get a good score on anything, our education system focuses our attention on meeting set criteria to be competitive and get the A.
But, it also becomes easier to lose that sense of excitement, creativity, and flow that comes from pure unbridled Interest Curiosity.
Deprivation Curiosity vs. Interest Curiosity
Viewed from this lens, one can clearly see that the adults in the experiment suffered stagnation because of the former, while the kiddos were propelled to success by the latter.
Lesson Learned!
Understanding the difference between the two invites us to be deliberate about the type of curiosity we can choose from moment to moment.
But, BEWARE!
MB points out how insidiously society can dissuade us from our natural inclination to be curious and be deliberate about devoting time to pursuing our creative interests.
To illustrate her point, she tells a wonderful story about how she had her own “Interest Curiosity” maligned in a not-so-subtle way, when she was diagnosed with ADHD and the practitioner said, “It means you have an abnormally interest-based nervous system…. It means you pay more attention to things that interest you than things that don’t.”
Of course, the practitioner offered to help her “overcome [her] learning disability,” for “several thousand dollars.”
It’s true, we do need to be able to focus on what we dislike — pretty much every day — to take out the trash, weed the garden, pay the bills, and function in our society.
But, I agree with MB that…
At a fundamental level, having an “interest-based nervous system” is not problematic. It can be our North Star.
We can work with our minds, bodies, and emotions — instead of struggling against them.
We can choose to use our interest-based nervous system to navigate closer to who we truly are, encourage us to build upon our strengths, and pursue our dreams.
Our interest-based nervous system can show us how to live fulfilling lives.
Indeed, as MB states, her interest-based nervous system “feels like a navigation tool, one that’s always guided me into life situations that feel meaningful….”
I wholeheartedly agree, because it’s the specific interests that we have that makes us special, unique individuals.
What’s more, MB says…
Our interest-based nervous system can be a cure for anxiety.
As she puts it, her “interest-based curiosity is the doorway leading me out of anxiety and into creativity. It has helped me solve countless real problems in practical ways.”
Now, take a Mindful Minute to reflect on your life:
⭐️ For our private Journaling, when you reflect on your life, do you experience a good amount of Interest Curiosity? Where? At work or outside of work?
⭐️ How do the two — Interest Curiosity & Deprivation Curiosity — feel different for you, in your emotions, in your physical body, in your ability to not only learn, but to experience enthusiasm, excitement, and joy?
⭐️ Do you want more Interest Curiosity in your life? Could you do it by exploring something creative?
Are you as ready as I am to leave your
Deprivation Curiosity in the dust?
To embrace your Interest Curiosity,
each and every day?
To live a much healthier & fun life,
full of unbridled joy & creative flow?
👭 If you want to enlist the help of a Fellow Creative, to help you break free…
Our CHAT can be a safe place to tell safe people what you’d like to accomplish, so we can all support & cheer you on.
👭 If you’re comfortable doing so, feel free to tell us what Creative Practice you would like to try whenever one of your Anxiety Spirals starts to spin.
Let’s TRUST in our ability to create safety in ourselves by being the Creatives we are meant to be.
Together, we can support each other on our healing journeys.
Together, we can soothe, nurture, & love the Creative Self inside all of us.
The Interest Curiosity in me honors & respects the Interest Curiosity in each of you,
Marisa
⭐️ Remember, we don’t have to figure everything out, all alone. ⭐️
We can find solutions, together!
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