005 Da Vinci, Curiosity And The Eye
Curiosity: Curiosity is something that fascinates me. Sometimes, I feel curious about curiosity. And I've found out that curiosity really is a great trait to have and is kind of a necessity to succeed in today's rapid changing world. The passionate drive to know more, learn and understand how the world works, are all amazing attributes. In today's world we often only try to find an answer to a question. For example in schools when a child asks a "different" question, he's told that "we need to stick to the curriculum". That depresses the child's curiosity. This is one of the many reasons why most children find school as a burden and something which isn't fun. For teenagers in school at least, school isn't a place to learn (which it is supposed to be), it's just something that you "have to do". And so we students have kind of a mind-set that makes us motivated to pay attention in class only because it's "important and will be there in the tests". We are all born with a curious mind. It helps us grow, it helps us learn how to speak, how to learn and it helps us to understand the world. A child between 1-5 goes through so much rapid change and learns so much. But an adult who is 30 doesn't experience much change and doesn't learn a lot in the next 5 years of his life.
The probable reason? This happens because children are curious and that drives them to learn more and ask more questions and understand better. Curiosity doesn't need to stop after being a child. Anyone, at any age can reap the benefits of curiosity. Being curious isn't something that you'll have to relearn to be. You always had that curiosity, you just need to awaken it and learn and understand the world better. At the same time, being a better problem solver and a greater creative person
One quote which I found to be amazing this week:
"The eye encompasses the beauty of the whole world." — Leonardo Da Vinci
Book I've been reading this week: Think Like Da Vinci by Michael J. Gelb
This book consists of seven Da Vincian principles to "boost your everyday genius". Curiosita (insatiably curious approach to life), Dimostrazione (learning from experience), Sensazione (refinement of the senses), Sfumato (embrace ambiguity), Arte/Scienza (whole brain thinking), Corporalita (cultivating fitness and poise), Connessione (systems thinking)
These seven principles are filled with exercises and applications of the principles for the readers to use. Classified even for parents and the applications of the principles at work.
We learn about Da Vinci and how he made his amazing observations and experiments throughout his intense life.
I enjoyed reading this book, though found some parts of it to be pretty obvious. But we usually overlook the obvious things and never do them. The principle on Curiosita was the most awakening for me on how to keep questioning and lead through an insatiably curious child-like approach to problems and phenomena.
If you want to, here's a link to buy the book
All articles from this week on arjunkhemani.com:
Have a great week ahead!