Curiosity is my #1 driving force. That is why I ponder questions like "why do we continue?" There is nothing quite like the sensation of "clicking", figuring something out, attaining the ability to speak about a complex subject with ease. It's wonderful.
And I discovered that curiosity itself is absolutely a drug. By itself, it is merely another path to acquire certain sensations - the sensation of learning, the sensation of innovating, the sensation of connecting the dots. Indeed, this is the drug that most people here share. Curiosity is another form of pleasure-seeking, complete with it's own set of dark sides (the obsession, the depression, etc).
Curiosity, though, is the highest of the pleasures. It is the only pleasure that can reach beyond itself to the truly new. In my case, I was perplexed by the pointlessness of the world. All of the work in technology and science. All of the factories pumping out electronics and gadgets. And the question arose: what is all of that for? And even more simply, where does it all go? The second answer came first: entropy, war, consumerism. And it struck me: what a waste. Entropy cannot be avoided, but clearly mankind has excess productive capacity, and more clearly it's being channeled into destructive purposes. We aren't building monuments, we are building disposable goods to be burned up in the great bonfires of consumerist vanity and mostly pointless nationalism.
And the thought arose in me: we need, I need, something positive to work toward. We all need it. We need something positive, something lasting, something beyond ourselves, to channel our excess productive capacity into. We need to know that what we make won't get burned up in a war or thrown into a trash heap. And what better option than an attempt to colonize other worlds? Here was a worthy goal, extremely difficult and demanding of us intellectually and economically. And if successful, would ensure that Life would live on no matter what calamity struck us here at home.
> sheer curiosity
Curiosity is my #1 driving force. That is why I ponder questions like "why do we continue?" There is nothing quite like the sensation of "clicking", figuring something out, attaining the ability to speak about a complex subject with ease. It's wonderful.
And I discovered that curiosity itself is absolutely a drug. By itself, it is merely another path to acquire certain sensations - the sensation of learning, the sensation of innovating, the sensation of connecting the dots. Indeed, this is the drug that most people here share. Curiosity is another form of pleasure-seeking, complete with it's own set of dark sides (the obsession, the depression, etc).
Curiosity, though, is the highest of the pleasures. It is the only pleasure that can reach beyond itself to the truly new. In my case, I was perplexed by the pointlessness of the world. All of the work in technology and science. All of the factories pumping out electronics and gadgets. And the question arose: what is all of that for? And even more simply, where does it all go? The second answer came first: entropy, war, consumerism. And it struck me: what a waste. Entropy cannot be avoided, but clearly mankind has excess productive capacity, and more clearly it's being channeled into destructive purposes. We aren't building monuments, we are building disposable goods to be burned up in the great bonfires of consumerist vanity and mostly pointless nationalism.
And the thought arose in me: we need, I need, something positive to work toward. We all need it. We need something positive, something lasting, something beyond ourselves, to channel our excess productive capacity into. We need to know that what we make won't get burned up in a war or thrown into a trash heap. And what better option than an attempt to colonize other worlds? Here was a worthy goal, extremely difficult and demanding of us intellectually and economically. And if successful, would ensure that Life would live on no matter what calamity struck us here at home.
That's how curiosity led to belief.