Curiouser and curiouser: More input! 🗣️
A personal story on building knowledge and curiosity, with credit to my dad. (Audio; 1:32)
Today’s post was inspired by Riccardo Vocca’s great post yesterday on building curiosity and knowledge about the world 1. I shared the below as a Substack note 2 last night. I’m publishing it today for my subscribers because I’m curious to learn about your curiosity stories 😊.
In honor of today being Father’s Day: I credit my dad for helping me build my own curiosity through reading. He was an avid reader and taught me to read before I started school. In hindsight, I was kind of a lightning-struck Number 5 kid (“Short Circuit”); “more input”! Dad was always on the lookout for cheap or free used books (or music!) for us.
Back in the day, people sold sets of World Book encyclopedias door to door. My dad picked up a used set from a friend that was a few years old. Every time I finished my weekly library loaners early, I picked a letter of the alphabet, pulled a World Book off the shelf, and just started reading. I learned about things I didn’t know existed and would have never known to look up.
My dad died before I finished high school, but among the many things he gave me, this gift of curious reading was huge and has dominated my whole life. Thanks, Dad.
😊 What’s your curiosity story?
Thank you so much Karen not only for mentioning my newsletter and my post - your sincere appreciation fills me with enthusiasm and pushes me to always find other interesting things to talk about and write about possibly even better! - but also for having explored the very theme of this 'spasmodic' curiosity towards science and certain types of reading. I think that reflections and incitements to this type of thinking or to training yourself to be stimulated, looking for different interesting things for each of us, is very important. And your note and your issue, among other things with a wonderful personal story, represent a sincere and valuable effort on this. Thanks again!
That was sweet Karen. Lovely memory. 😊