Choose to be Curious

Larry Robertson makes the case: we aren’t just a “questioning species”, questions are the source of our flourishing. When we learn to use them well, we all benefit. Larry Robertson: https://lrspeaks.com Theme music by Sean Balick; “Great Great Lengths” by The Balloonist, via Blue Dot Sessions.

Happy Semiquincentennial! Washington DC-based social sculptor, speaker, and writer Philippa Pham Hughes and I luxuriate in curiosity, this crazy big milestone, and letting ourselves dream about the next 250 years. Theme music by Sean Balick; “Cradle Rocks” by Nursery, via Blue Dot Sessions.

I know I'm relaxed when I'm barefoot in the grass. Something about the smell. The slightly damp, uneven texture under my feet. The associated breeze and bird song. It pulls me fully into the moment, settles me. So I'm putting my toes in the proverbial grass this month. Here are some great re-airs to enjoy! Featuring: Monica Quesada Cordero, Matthias Gruber, Laura Zigman & Shawkat Toorawa Theme mus...

Shaka Mitchell says, “I have seen firsthand how sharing a song can shortcut barriers and spark curiosity about perspectives vastly different from our own…"At a time when we can use all the connective tissue we’ve got, why not turn to something as fundamental as music to build our curiosity muscle? Come Together Music Project: https://www.cometogethermusic.org Theme music by Sean Balick; “Turning O...

The research made headlines: the raccoon raiding your garbage can might just be solving puzzles for the fun of it. Animal behavior scientist Hannah Griebling's work focuses on raccoon cognition and human-wildlife conflict. Short version: they win. They love the challenge. The masked bandit as a curiosity role model! Hannah Griebling: https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=JCuZt0wAAAAJ The...

Have you ever noticed how much a space influences how you feel? How a place can put you in a good place...or not? How might we design and inhabit spaces that make choosing curiosity easier? Leidy Klotz offers tips to navigate the spaces around us, making both the best of them and feeding the best in us. Leidy Klotz: https://leidyklotz.com Theme music by Sean Balick; “Discovery Harbor" by Cloud Har...

Ep. #326: Marking Our 10th Anniversary, with Lynn Borton by Lynn Borton

Manisha Biswas danced her way into my heart. She was the 2025 social science category winner of the Dance Your PhD contest – a prize she won for her interpretative performance of her thesis, “The Powerful Outcomes of Collective Synchrony”. The Dance Your PhD contest was launched in 2008 to help educate people about complex theories through interpretive dance. I ask you: What is not to love about t...

When the world feels like it’s breaking apart in a million places and even more pieces, I find myself wanting to learn from folks who are leaning into curiosity about the other, people who believe we can promote peace through what Sister Cities founder Dwight D. Eisenhower called “people-to-people diplomacy.” Fred Blanton is one of those people. He serves as the Virginia/West Virginia Coordinator...

I’ve been wanting to do a show about curiosity and community engagement in urban planning for a long time. Amber Wiley's  Model Schools in the Model City: Race, Planning, and Education in the Nation’s Capital is a fascinating, densely-researched look at how Black Washingtonians drove urban planning and design policy for public education. The book is, as one reviewer put it, “a stirring lesson in h...

Lady Borton has spent many years living and working in Việt Nam, providing relief service during the war and collecting stories and history ever since-- trying to make sense of the era, the place, the people -- before the stories are lost to time or erasure. She wrote me, “Because I don't know and don't assume I know, I ask odd questions." A curiosity practice, to be sure! Lady is pictured with he...

Do you have a sense of purpose? What does that mean to you? And what place does curiosity have in finding and living one's purpose? There's a lot of research going on around purpose. Purpose Commons is moving that research into practice -- and focusing it on youth. Purpose Commons: https://www.purposecommons.org Theme music by Sean Balick; “FasterFasterBrighter” by Ray Catcher, via Blue Dot Sessio...

As the world's largest online information resource, Wikipedia knows a thing or two about how our curiosity shows up. I wondered: as our information landscape changes, how does Wikipedia adjust? And our curiosity? Lisa Seitz Gruwell, Chief Advancement Officer at Wikimedia Foundation, joined me to reflect on what's worked and the importance of making time for curiosity. Wikipedia: https://en.wikiped...

Art Cullen is the editor and co-owner with his brother John of the Storm Lake Times Pilot, a weekly newspaper in that Northwest Iowa county seat – a town of about 12,000. He has a lot to say to and about the people and place he clearly loves, and mourns.  A place he knows so well, and yet still wonders at and about. Storm Lake Times Pilot: https://www.stormlake.com Dear Marty, We Crapped In Our Ne...

I don't know about you, but sometimes the curiosity just isn't there. So I "fake it until I make it"-- I act like like I'm curious. I behave in curious ways, in hopes the feelings will follow. Wouldn't it be nice if there were an app for that? Enter The Humane Space. Lauren Henkin created the lifestyle company and first-of-its-kind app to help people find greater meaning in life through curiosity,...

Chronolog is a way to generate time-lapse images of Earth, powered by your camera -- and your curiosity. Used by organizations worldwide to monitor the environment and inspire our stewardship of our natural resources, this nifty citizen science effort capitalizes on our casual interest. Pretty clever. Chronolog: https://www.chronolog.io Theme music by Sean Balick; “A Catalog of Seasons” from Migra...

Teacher Micaela Pond felt called in yet another direction following the first election of Donald Trump. She soon emerged as a formidable community organizer. I asked her to reflect on curiosity in the work of fighting authoritarianism through community action. WOFA: https://wofava.org Theme music by Sean Balick; “Spunk Lit” by Love & Weasel, via Blue Dot Sessions.

Yvonne Marchese is the lovely and effervescent host of Late Bloomer Living a weekly podcast devoted to redefining what's possible in midlife and beyond. She's a self-described age agitator, play instigator and believer in do-overs on a journey of discovery around that aforementioned play -- which brought her, as it can, to curiosity. Late Bloomer Living: https://www.latebloomerliving.com Theme mus...

Ep.#314: "Curiosity is the thing that drives you to figure out who you really are," with jimmy Hatch by Lynn Borton

Kids are learning machines! But how do they do it? Cognitive scientist Elizabeth Bonawitz is helping us understand how children learn to learn and what role curiosity has to play in those processes. From dinner placemats to trading stickers for science facts, she finds creative ways to get at the heart of this most human of mechanisms. Computational Cognitive Development Lab: https://ccdlab.hsites...

How does an emergency department doctor manage the chaotic swirl of unknowns that show up at their door every day? What are they to make of the needs that emerge from the complex socioeconomic soup in which we all swim? Is curiosity a tool of choice? And are there lessons the rest of us might learn from an ER doc’s hard-won experience?  Milwaukee ER doctor Chris Ford replies with a resounding "Yes...

Malka Ranjana Kopell and Palma Joy Strand are co-founders of Civity, a word they created to describe a culture of deliberately engaging in relationships of respect and empathy with others who are different. They offer tools and trainings to help us all do just that. No surprise, curiosity plays an important part, but not just any curiosity... Civity: https://www.civity.org Theme music by Sean Bali...

...there was just too much goodness here, so I made the hard choice to move the analogies and lovely final reflections to an added clip. Theme music by Sean Balick; "Town Market" by Onesuch Village, via Blue Dot Sessions.

Sommelier and wine consultant Alicia Towns Franken embodies a tantalizing combination: wine --as another in my periodic series on curiosity and our senses--and an actual boots-on-the-ground effort to encourage and enable curiosity where barriers have long existed. Wine Unify: https://www.wineunify.org Theme music by Sean Balick; “Down by the Bank” by Barstool, via Blue Dot Sessions. Photo Credit:...

Curiosity gets a lot of credit for success. For me, that raises an interesting inverse question: what about curiosity and failure? Who better to invite into that conversation than Samuel West, creator of Museum of Failure, a collection of failed products and services from around the world. Museum of Failure: https://museumoffailure.com Theme music by Sean Balick. “The Rampart” by Castle Danger, vi...