Cosmological kids

Robert Krulwich wasn't kidding when he reported that this child enjoys talking about cosmology. His preternatural ease on subjects like origins, nature and future of the universe and the meaning of life is as astonishing as it is refreshing: "of course, I could be wrong."

Were more people this right.

We were sad to hear about the passing of Roger Ebert yesterday. While he was most noted of course for his movie reviews, he was also a gifted writer who, in his own way, never ceased to be amazed by the wonder of life, "drunk," as he wrote about the movie Broken Embraces, "on primary colors."

Here is his last entry, written Tuesday.

Stay curious.

Wayne

The most interesting things come from people interested in things

The most interesting things come from people interested in things - artist Hasan Elahi

Today is a good day to republish this popular blog post of participants and presenters last year describing why curiosity is important to them. Here's why: now through April 21, you can get the lowest priced 2013 Festival Pass that will be offered this year! But be warned. On April 22 it will cost more.

I hope to see you Sept. 25 - 27!

Here are some of the reasons why I think curiosity is important.

Genuinely curious questions open us to new information. And a comfort with novel information and new experiences in general is a key trait of creative people.

There are strong links between curiosity and personal satisfaction, curiosity and good health, and curiosity and successful business. About the latter: studying a field other than your own is linked to insight, problem solving and, if the new understanding is skillfully brought to market, to profit. So yes, interesting things come from people interested in things.

When questions and a desire for novelty are preferred over answers and rigid certainty, hope and optimism grow. Fear diminishes.

We know from a number of studies that curiosity is a predictor of intelligence.

Curiosity is a social skill. It tends to diminish over time. But it's a skill that can be learned. One of the founders of modern dance, Isadora Duncan, is quoted as saying, “If I could tell you what it meant, there would be no point in dancing it.” Experience creates meaning. Curiosity informed by experience shows us the difference that can make a difference.

And as individuals, curiosity clarifies. Given permission to explore the world around us, the world around us will eventually tell us who we really are. 

Wayne

Take your eyes off the prize?

Goals should be more than a number or a destination, according to author Oliver Burkeman. 

'We've all heard that setting huge, ambitious goals is the master key to getting ahead,' Burkeman says. 'In fact, setting goals and carrying out plans to achieve them is how many of us spend most of our waking hours. But chasing after goals can often backfire in horrible ways.'

Illustrating the point using General Motors, Burkeman lists four ways to set goals that "move businesses forward."

Two: take your eyes OFF the prize so that the pursuit of a goal doesn't become an all or nothing proposition, and embrace uncertainty. Because while goal setting might be comforting, it can blind one to the unexpected opportunity that might put the goal within reach.

Burkeman is the author of the best selling, "The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking."

Wayne

Image: Some rights reserved by magnezja

If you're too busy to create, you'll find time to fail

Is busyness killing business? Fast Company:

[Jeffrey] Phillips makes a strong argument for why our busyness is killing our business--that is, if you're in the business of creating anything new.

When we're infatuated with efficiency, Phillips says, we let innovation die. By imprisoning ourselves in metrics, we don't value the less quantifiable, more long-term aspects of value creation, like exploration, empathy, contemplation, and stillness. Since we're conditioned to the thrills of fighting fires, firing off emails, and the validation that gives us, we feel starved of time. And our product development gets malnourished.

Here is Jeffrey Philips on his blog, Innovate on Purpose:

We've been taught to manage our time, focus on what is important, stay occupied and stay in demand. People who are constantly busy are hard to remove, while people who don't seem as engaged in day to day activities or whose capabilities or energies aren't focused on tomorrow's successes are often considered to be less useful or not contributing. Once we are all fully booked every working hour in meetings, discussions and debates we'll finally be fully efficient, and almost as assuredly innovation will wither and die.

"Busyness" in this case may be related to the compunction, simply, to solve a problem instead of discovering the dynamics that created the problem in the first place. The thing is, "finding problems" is associated with the kind of creativity that transcends the incrementalist impulse and the busyness beneath which it hides.

Think of it this way: businesses that break the rules also get to create the rules.

So! How long do you live in the question?

Wayne

Image: Some rights reserved by abahgat

Using random investments to stabilize markets

While randomness and uncertainty are often seen as undesirable, that needn't always be the case.  What if, for example, central banks could use random investment strategies to make markets more stable, to protect markets from human instinct and old habit?

Forbes:

The authors suggest that one way that markets could be stabilized in the long run would be for central banks to adopt random investment strategies to reduce volatility.

The benefit of that central bank strategy, the authors state, might be two-fold: 'From an individual point of view, agents would suffer less for asymmetric or insider information, due to the consciousness of a 'fog of uncertainty’ created by the random investments. From a systemic point of view, again the herding behavior would be consequently reduced and eventual bubbles would burst when they are still small and are less dangerous; thus, the entire financial system would be less prone to the speculative behaviour of credible ‘guru’ traders.'

Wikipedia: econophysics

Stay curious!

Wayne

Image: Some rights reserved by Perpetualtourist2000