sophisticated curiosity

performed certainty is generationally violent, the antidote: “ARE YOU SURE?”

When I call my dad, naturally, the first thing he asks is, “how are you?” It's a familiar routine I get all day, everyday. You too, I bet. 

The difference is, with my dad, some select friends, AND the rarely evolved person, do I trust the sincerity of the inquiry. Honest interest is detected, not articulated. Sophisticated curiosity requires a musculature that is far too uncommon in relation to ourselves and each other. 

I don't see many folks asking sincere questions of the “other” and MOST IMPORTANTLY, of themselves. We have been guaranteed that if you got an A on the test, went to an Ivy League school, if a religious doctrine, politician or doctor in a white coat make a claim - then it's as good as gold. I meet that vicious certainty with a three-word phrase that might be a pathway to *de-escalation*: ARE YOU SURE?

It's easy to put a fact in the middle of an argument and build yourself a moral podium by which to stand. However, facts don’t win wars, they don’t protect people or stop bombs. Facts prop up different types of stories - the same way characters, scenes, and settings do. They’re not the argument, they’re just part of it. And the stories we tell ourselves, the beliefs we’ve constructed about a person, people…and most importantly, identity is why we go to war. 

These stories become violent when you attach your identity to them and use it as an EXCUSE to avoid the nuance. We have, over the past three thousand years (since Aristotle changed the way children were taught), trained the species to be allergic to complexity. We absolutely have the capacity to be uncomfortable in the absence of certainty; its built in our DNA. We’ve been trained to believe something is ajar if we can’t find ‘certainty’ - we’re either the failure because we don't get it or others are the idiot because they don’t. None of those scenarios are ever universally true.

Consequently, we manufacture lines through the sand - arguments, perspectives, people, and our own intuition, and we pick a side that makes us feel less bad about being uncomfortably unclear. Shame, however, continues to linger in the back of your mind because the inner ___________ [insert your name] has a hunch that there might be MORE to the story…and you’re RIGHT (see, you really are brilliant, just hang in there). 

You do not have the full picture, it’s an impossibility to fully grasp, decode, fathom, process, or entirely make sense of anyTHING. The myth that you have that capacity has caused you, and others, a lot of anguish. So, stop trying and join the freedom of always being enough unsure that you remain constantly CURIOUS.

You’re welcome to use my mantra whenever I’m ready to throw down on an argument: Jenna,…“ARE YOU SURE?” If the answer is anything more than a humble “I think so” than I know I need to flex that curious muscle more. It doesn’t mean I can’t speak (or shout) my thoughts - but it does give the perspective more fluidity, more permission to change and invites others to collective inquiry. 

Sophisticated curiosity is a liberating stance - it's a soothing rhythmic response to the world telling you they are justified in the ____________ [insert: action, idea, policy, blame…or worse]. Performed certainty is generationally violent, the antidote is sophisticated curiosity: welcome to “ARE YOU SURE?”