The drives in all of us

The drives in all of us

Let’s begin. Let’s look at these drives. Let’s see them in action. Let’s see the affect they have on us in our day to day lives.

Why, what, who, when, where, can, and how. All these have something in common. They are questioning. We are asking. We want to find out. We want to discover. What is that? Who made this? When is dinner? Can this be used for ...? How do I get there? Endless questions. When we wake up, many of us will ask ourselves what day it is and look at a clock to see what time it is. We read the news to find out what is happening. We want to know if we have any messages. When we notice something move, we want to work out what it is. We notice changes and want to know why something has changed. Who changed it? When was it changed? What is touching me? What is making that noise? Who sung that song? What time does the shop close? What is for lunch?

Who will be the next leader. Will they raise taxes again? Which tax will they raise first. How much have I got saved now. How long will it take to get enough to buy what I want? When is the wedding. Who is invited. Why did they not invite me. What dress will she wear. Who invented this. Could it be made more cheaply. Could it be made better. Do they do it in other colours. Why are they being racist. Why did they pick on me. Why is the sky blue. Who is at fault. Who shall I blame. Can I get there in time. Can I complete my assignment without cheating. Can I get help from somebody. Who will help me. What will they want in return. Will it impress or will it make me look cheap, or unoriginal. What is the word for being kind without wanting the favour returned. How many words are there in the dictionary. Why is my mother so grumpy. Why did my sister rob all my savings. Why can’t life be simpler. Why are things so jolly unfair. When will the time come. Will disaster strike if we don’t change things. What is the meaning of life.

Curiosity may have killed the cat, but curiosity is life. Curiosity inspires the will to live. What is the best way to spoil someone’s enjoyment of a film? Tell them how it ends. Take away the suspense. We are glued to the screen in anticipation of what may happen. We watch as we have the desire to know how things turn out. We are inclined to throw a book away, part way through when we no longer care how the story evolves. We hear people use the term curiosity from time to time but never realise that it is entrenched in everything we do. We use curiosity to discover new places. We use it in science to solve huge problems. We use it to explore. We use it though for menial everyday tasks too. Curiosity is not solely brought to bear in large scale investigations. Curiosity drives all investigations big and small. Some describe people as being curious. We are all curious. We are just curious about different things.

Is the water in the kettle boiled yet? Why did that bridge collapse? These are rather different curiosities. However, they use the same curiosity mechanism. The only difference between wondering whether the water has boiled or why the bridge collapsed is the number of neurons involved in your head. Some curiosities will call on hundreds of times as many neurons as others. It only matters how important it is to you; how much you personally care.

You may suspect Aunt Mable is having an affair. If so, who is she having an affair with. We may also wonder about her marriage and why she was inclined to cheat. Is it a fling. Will it be a brief encounter that will not last long. Is she going to get a divorce. One fact and lots of questions surrounding it. Some of us will care far more about Aunt Mable’s affair than others. Some will see these types of discussions as mindless gossip. Having little interest in the marital affairs of others doesn’t mean you have less curiosity overall. In many cases our curiosity depends on how it affects you. If an affair means you may lose your inheritance or be kicked out on to the street your curiosity will be magnified. An event may affect us, and we delve into the details to work out what to do. In order to work out what to do we ask questions; we find out things - all using the curiosity machine in our head.

We all have things to worry about. Our curiosity points in different directions. You may like to be kept informed about what is happening between people. This wish is comparable in importance to you as another’s desire to investigate why people are mysteriously falling ill. One person’s desire to solve a problem in science is matched by someone else’s desire to solve a crossword puzzle. A gap in our knowledge, is a gap in our knowledge. Ultimately neurons get rearranged and new links are formed. We will always care about our own neurons the most. Neurons get changed in your head when you find out about major events. Neurons get changed in your head when you find out about trivial matters. Regardless of the impact to the wider world, regardless of the significance of what has happened, links are made, links are moved, links are removed. Links inside your head. Our neurons, our actions, our bubble, our world in our head. All powered by curiosity. This curiosity mechanism is at work all day, every day. These two questions; where did I put my pen? and where is the enemy lurking? use the same curiosity process. A child looks for their toy. An adult looks for friends and foe. A child may get frustrated when they can’t find something. An adult gets frustrated when they don’t know where the killer is. Those frustrations are gaps in our knowledge. A gap in our knowledge can mean people die or get injured. A gap in knowledge might only mean getting home late. Either way it is the same system in our heads that make us fill in our lack of knowledge. Where can I get a tin of paint from, uses the same mechanism as where can I get a better weapon from.

Mysteries play into the hands of our innate curiosity. Where did that person vanish to? Were they killed or could they be still alive somewhere? What happened and who was responsible? We search and search for answers. We may not let it go until we solve the mystery. Looking for lost treasure is another example. Looking for a bounty held on a sunken ship or hoard of silverware. Some have set up treasure hunts. They chose a place to bury a golden object then published some vague clues to indicate its whereabouts. This has sent people crazy. So crazy that they offered to pay someone ten times the value of the golden object to be told where it is. They are not so much interested in having the object but knowing where it is. They want to know what the clues meant. They want to know how close they were to finding it. They want to know if they were on the right track.

Look how we fret when we are dumped. We want an explanation. We consider all the possibilities. Was it something we said. Was it because of how we behaved. Was it something about us that led to that fateful decision? Do we need to change? What was the real reason for the upset? What are they not telling us? We want to know as our mind will not rest. We seek closure. Did the person that left us know certain things? Would an explanation recover the situation? Curiosity leaves us in turmoil. Being told the reason for a breakup, the main reason, enables us to move forward. We mither about what could have been as we are uncertain about key facts.

We want to find out who did something, who stole something or who was really responsible for an accident. We crave setting the record straight in our heads. Our curiosity drives this. Once the record has been set straight and we get to the truth, we are no longer plagued by the curiosity. We may be given an explanation but have some doubts. If doubts linger, we will do some research. We will re-examine the evidence. We will be curious until those doubts are gone.

During a large investigation we use curiosity to summon clues. We speculate how each clue can impact the investigation. We consider what clues there may be using curiosity to solve the bigger curiosity. We are curious to know what clues will help and what we can find to rule things out. Curiosity can bug us intently and relentlessly. Have you ever looked in every draw and cupboard for something? Hours wasted. You sit down and another potential place of where it could be pops into your mind.

Curiosity can be a huge factor in the inspiration to travel. Curiosity inspires us to visit places we haven’t been to before. We want to experience different cultures. We want to see sights that we have heard about but not seen. Will it be like what we imagine it to be? Once the decision is made to go, we need to know what time we must arrive at the airport. Wanting to know that departure time might not seem like it is a curiosity thing, but I say it is. As is the thinking about whether the flight will be busy and will it be on time. Will it be a smooth flight or turbulent? How am I going to get to the hotel? Who will I meet? Even if it is a destination we have been to before, we brood over whether they still serve the same food as last time.

That fruit looks ‘new’, I haven’t seen anything quite like that before, I wonder what it tastes like? How does the texture compare to other similar fruits? On it goes. What is this stuck on my seat? Our days are spent contending with vast numbers of micro curiosities. Our weeks spent on bigger curiosities, ones that are more involved. Our years on great unknowns. Which button do I press to get the lift door to shut? Is the yogurt still edible. How can I balance the budget. How can I move forward with my venture. What do I really want from life. What matters the most.

I have presented a random selection of different things we may or may not be interested in. All are driven by our curiosity. Was my writing worth the effort? Were all those keystrokes in vain? If you can stop right now and think about what you are to do for the rest of the day, how many curiosities can you come up with? Why do you want a career change, why do you want a new partner, why do you do what you do? A vast proportion of every action, everything you do, has a basis in curiosity. There is of course more to it than that. There are two other basic drives that come into play as well.

One thing is quite apparent; we do not all care about the same things. There are things you care about a lot which other people do not care about at all. You care far more about this; they care far more about that. We each have the same curiosity mechanism, but it is directed in different ways. Some may wonder who won the football match. What was the score, who scored and how did the team manage to pull it off. Others have absolutely no interest in who scored, who won or whether the football match was even played or not. We are curious about other things instead. Curiosity is fundamental to who we are. Lose your curiosity and you lose the will to live. If you no longer care what is going to happen in the future, your future, the future of your children, the future of your favourite football team or what progress man will make, then you shrivel up. We need to be curious about something.

We think of life as being deep and meaningful. We search for the reasons for our existence. We look for something extraordinary and never realise how simple we are. We are nothing other than a body with a head atop that holds a vast conglomeration of links. Most links link nicely, but some lead to gaps. These gaps produce curiosity. We have a gap in our knowledge, and we want to fill it. That goes for academic items, simple facts, or methods of doing something. We may wish to know how something works or how we could make it work better. We do that by rearranging links and sorting out the gaps. Each day we refine the links and fill more gaps. Some gaps appear fleetingly. Other gaps form a huge hole with countless links surrounding it. When you think, you run along lines of thought and encounter a gap. That stops us in our tracks sometimes. That spoils the ride. When we fill the gap, it feels good. A bit like repairing a pothole in the road.