Filling the gaps in our knowledge

Gap filling

We can fill a pothole with mud, tarmac, stones, water, or mince pies. It fills the gap in the road regardless. We can fill our minds with murky, muddy, flaky, beguiling things too. We can have a head full of nonsense or a heap of things that make little sense. We had a gap, now it is filled, for now, and that stops us worrying about it. Our curiosity needs sating. We glean bits of information and build a bank of knowledge. We create a set of beliefs. Curiosity can be sated with anything that seems to fit the gap. It needs to fit what we already understand. The car sinks into the hole if it is not filled with something solid. People question our beliefs and challenge us about what we know. We will debate and argue with them and if we have a weakness in our argument, we begin to realise that there is what you might call, room for improvement in what have filled our mind with. A strong belief is bound by lots of links tied to it. A belief is held in place by lots of other information, much of which is often quite correct. You believe because of this, because of that, because of many things. The truth, the veracity, the credibility of a belief may be left wanting, but the gap is filled and that is that. Lots of cars or one big lorry will upset any badly filled pothole. Lots of people, or one very persuasive individual can do the equivalent with our beliefs. These people create a new gap for your curiosity to deal with.

We can satisfy our curiosity to some extent by watching the television and getting engrossed in a film. However, this method of learning has limits. A bunch of cooks each made a fine plate of food. The audience watching at home were invited to judge which they thought was the best. Surely something is amiss here. We have been asked to select the winning plate of food without getting to taste it. Curiosity is not simply facts and figures. Curiosity is more than just images. Curiosity involves feeling things, tasting things and being somewhere. Seeing someone getting annoyed in a film is nowhere near the same as being face to face with an angry person. Being bitten by a mosquito hurts. I have fired a variety of assault rifles and a heavy machine gun. No film that I have watched gets close to the sensation of using these weapons. The noise is deafening. The damage they can do is far beyond what we can imagine in our heads. Large puffs of sand and smoke rose from the hillock in front of me as the obliterative effect of the stream of bullets smashed their way forward. It needs to be seen for oneself to appreciate how staggering it was. Curiosity is multi-sensory. First-hand experience counts. We need to see things with our own eyes, at the scene, to get a true understanding of things. Those that wonder about love can only have their curiosity satisfied on that subject by immersing themselves in a meaningful way with someone. No fairytale book can do the same. Certain memories have a deep emotional attachment.

A berry can be described as sweet and astringent, but it is not until you put one in your mouth that your curiosity is really satisfied. Curiosity is sated with experience. Stories told to us are no match for first-hand experience. Words don’t have the same impact. Hence, we try in vain to advise our children to no avail. They carry on, going against our wisdom regardless. They have to get burnt themselves to some extent. We learn by making mistakes, hopefully the lessons are not too damaging.

Gaps in our knowledge bug us. As do children when asking endless questions hoping that we can provide answers. As a parent we can fill their heads with semi-truths, lies, and sometimes reasonably accurate details. A child wants to know how a steering wheel turns the wheels on the ground. Each time they see a car they are reminded of this mystery. They ask you and as you have not got a clue you will make something up. This is fine until they realise years later that they have been duped. You wanted some peace and quiet and the answer you gave them filled the gap in their head.

Your memory is not a truth machine. It is your truth. When things don’t add up, when there seems to be a contradiction, you re-examine what you know. So many triggers can shift your thoughts back to mysteries that we have. One thought leads to another. Any image, any sound, any word relating to a car could bring our curiosity revolving the steering wheel, back into our attention. These puzzles get set aside until something reminds you again.

Gaps can’t be filled if we have doubts about the accuracy of what we have been told. However, they can be filled with truths that appeared credible. Once filled there is often no reason to revisit them. We stop questioning. That is until something gives us a reason to re-examine things. We hold lots of personal truths that suffice for us. It is our truths. What we hold in our head is data. Data is data, nothing more. The data we store in our heads fits with what we believe or want to believe. We can function quite well as a human being with lots of data missing, lots of erroneous data and even data that contradicts other data. Each piece of data filled a gap in our curiosity. It did the job.

When you look out of a window, you will be drawn towards things that are moving. This is a micro-curiosity. A bird landing, a cat stalking or a car passing by. The first micro-curiosity asks what it is that is moving. If it is something that interests you, you will examine it more. The more you care, the more you investigate. We get wrapped up in thousands of micro-curiosities every day. Smells, touches, tastes as well as visual stimuli all draw us away from what we are paying attention to. Curiosity can keep us safe and out of danger. Unsettling noises may make us run away. Curiosity has a far wider scope than you first imagine. Curiosity is in every what, why, where etc that comes your way. Is that my cat or the cat from next door? What is it up to? Where has it been?

boredom-small

It is amazing that children can watch the same cartoon every day for a whole week. They do so avidly and quite happily. Then do the same jigsaw puzzle over and over. Nevertheless, boredom does set in. Without boredom we would get stuck. We would repeat the same actions until we keel over. The rewards for running along the same pathway get less and less each time we go down them. So, we may create some variation. We might try completing that jigsaw puzzle upside down or in a faster time to boost the exhilaration but sooner or later, even with those extra challenges, the thrill tends to fade. Boredom manifests itself when we have little of interest to do or are doing something with minimal interest over and over. Change and variation is needed to avert boredom. Boredom tempers curiosity.

Sometimes we need to work through the boredom. We want the bigger rewards that are found by overcoming it. We may have to search long lists, examining many possibilities. We may need to process a vast amount of research to find an answer. We can force ourselves to overcome the power of boredom, but boredom wills us to have a break and do something else.

I was fortunate to have been brought up in a household where we were able to explore a wide range of ideas. It was some compensation for being made to do untold inane things. Some people like things done the way they want them done. You are constantly being scolded - for trying other ways of doing something, even though it achieves the same result. In many family units, open discussion is stymied. There is only one way of thinking. One doctrine. One set of books. One ideology that matter above all else. A mixture of mind-washing and becoming mind-awash. Full to the brim of things related to one point of view. Some cleaning, washing, but mainly filling, so much so that the victim is awash with ideas stemming from one doctrine. Curiosity is quashed or directed towards one segment of life only. All other segments are ignored. How can you explore places that you don’t know exist? Those that do uncover other paths, find them blocked and forbidden by those in control.

Loneliness. People self-imprisoned at home. No company or very little company. Few rewarding conversations. Areas of our curiosity nagging with only our own self to discuss things with. No opportunity to see if other people agree with our latest postulation. Boredom is coupled with loneliness. One can have all the curiosity in the world but what help is that if you have very few ways to satisfy it.

We crave continuity. We need not ask introductory questions with those we already know. We have continuity with relatives and friends and need not ask what is your name, where do you live, what brings you here. Those are boring questions. We value being able to delve a little deeper sometimes. That is easier with those that are already familiar with our background. Curiosity is a huge web. We want to explore the whole web rather than tread the same ground too often. Treading the same ground induces boredom.

If you are thinking ‘so what’, I know curiosity is a powerful force, then firstly tell me what the other two drives are. Put this book down and write them down. Secondly, if you are saying ‘so what’ then you have failed to understand the gravity of this revelation. Completely failed. Busy people won’t spend much time looking at what the motives were for their actions. The very reason you turned your head to stare at something, to glance at something, to examine something, was because of the curiosity machine that you were born with.

We can play curiosity tricks. We can tell half a story, we can hint at something, we can do many things that play on the curiosity drive. We draw people in via their inquisitiveness with simple tricks. When at a restaurant table, pick up a menu stand and look at the underside of it. Make an “Ahh” facial expression then put it back down. It won’t be long before someone else picks it up too, to see what you were looking at.

People will hide information to draw you in. Curiosity will stop you flicking to the next item.