Seek: How Curiosity Can Transform Your Life and Change the World by Scott Shigeoka

“Did you know that curiosity is your superpower?” heads the book jacket’s intriguing invitation to read Scott Shigeoka’s Seek: How Curiosity Can Transform Your Life and Change the World. The book jacket’s description certainly piqued my curiosity. I wanted to learn to ask more interesting questions because of my father’s habit of asking us kids at the dinner table, “What good questions did you ask at school today?” Note: He didn’t ask the expected question, “What did you learn?” His question instead implied we should proactively engage with people and information. Decades later—and I suppose more recently reminded by the Ted Lasso mantra unfurling on neighbors’ front-porch flags, Be Curious, Not Judgmental—I wanted to learn how to follow Dad’s wisdom. Shigeoka’s book, Seek, delivered more than I could have asked or imagined.

 

Shigeoka introduces concepts like deep curiosity and predatory, agenda-driven curiosity. He addresses different curiosity blocks, such as bias, assumption, and fear of uncertainty, and he offers hints to surmount such obstacles. Curiosity opens our worlds to other viewpoints and parts of people we might not see in normal, mundane, fact-exchanging conversation. But curiosity toward ourselves is also horizon-expanding. It leads us to apply self-compassion and come out the other side of life’s destabilizing events with renewed, hopeful, wiser perspectives. In promoting openness and curiosity, Shigeoka emphasizes the importance of listening. But he also advises how to discern when it’s best to listen and when to speak.

 

Seek is well-researched. Shigeoka presents concepts supported by psychological and behavioral studies as well as insights of writers and poets. With humility and humor, he includes stories from his own curiosity journey. I appreciated that he goes beyond educating the reader; I found this book very encouraging as well. In a culture where the most opinionated screamer appears to win, we need courage to move toward people with open, quiet, genuine curiosity.

 

Speaking of courage, one practice worth mentioning in more detail is “Become an Admitter.” On page 101, Shigeoka recaps four detaching strategies, one of which is admitting when you’re wrong. Enter a conversation with openness to (1) discover another view but stand pat with your own and (2) be willing to reroute your own thinking. He says, “See admitting being wrong as an act of intellectual humility that leads to better communication, relationships, leadership, and life satisfaction. You can do this by saying ‘Tell me more’ when you’re told you’re wrong, prioritizing learning and growth, and reminding yourself that humans are wired for forgiveness.”

 

As for learning to follow my dad’s example, I did pick up further inspiration and plenty of examples of good questions to be asking people. One in a list Shigeoka gives reminded me of the Seek book jacket: “What is a superpower you have that helps you or others?”

Early Autumn by Louis Bromfield ~ my review

 

In his Pulitzer(1927)-winning novel, Early Autumn, Louis Bromfield prismatizes 1920s New England high society through each main character’s perspective. The Pentland family estate near Boston represents old money and rigid societal expectations of such families. Anson and Olivia Pentland, Anson’s father, wife, aunt, and adopted cousin, as well as two teen daughters are all immersed in this culture. All have different perspectives, from fierce family pride to contemptuous rebellion and every nuance between. As Bromfield pens each perspective on the page, they splay out into a many-colored story.

 

The novel begins with a debutante ball that Olivia half-heartedly throws for her daughter. Several characters ominously profess to be wary about the adopted cousin’s (Sabine) return from Europe to stay a few months. They fear she will stir up trouble, and in fact, shortly thereafter, Sabine decides that a little rocking of the Pentland boat might amuse her. Knowing that Olivia is very unhappy in her marriage to Anson, Sabine arranges for Olivia to get to know a handsome outsider, a scorned Irish immigrant.

 

Although Bromfield at times employs omniscient POV, Early Autumn is truly Olivia Pentland’s story. In fact, his subtitle is A Story of a Lady. As events unfold, ninety percent of the action is Olivia’s inner conflicts about those events, romantic temptation, her daughter’s best interests, her discovery of ruinous Pentland family secrets, navigation of relationships with Sabine and the aunt who prove to be very unsafe people for Olivia, choices to be kind when no one else is, and her inner journey from one perspective about the Pentland family name to another. Through it all, she proves herself to be a lady.

 

I very much admire Olivia’s strength and dignity. Today we no longer place much importance on “being a lady,” because somehow being a lady now translates to being a fuddy-duddy or weak. But Olivia quietly, gracefully faces both overt and covert dangers. She is the clear heroine of this novel. “In a world which survived only by deceiving itself, she found that seeing the truth and knowing it made her strong.” [page 63 in my edition]

 

Early Autumn is a rich character study. Bromfield not only reflects attitudes in post-World War I America, but he also holds up to the light the very quality necessary in any era—tenaciously seeking truth before acting.

Leonardo's wisdom

What do you think of at the mention of Leonardo da Vinci? Inventions and paintings are my thoughts. But Leonardo also waxed philosophical about life. His notebooks were filled with not just sketches of early airplanes but also observations. 

 

"Let no one read my principles who is not a mathematician." Well, I'm going to ignore that one ... ha! Here's a good one: "Mechanics is the paradise of the mathematical sciences, because by means of it one comes to the fruits of mathematics." Remember all the kids in your high school algebra and geometry classes who blew off studying because they couldn't see how math would ever apply to anything in real life? I bet by now they've figured out they were wrong.

 

Because we are on the brink of a new year replete with resolutions, hopes, and fears of abandoned new disciplines, I've been encouraged by this gem of Leonardo's: "Oh Lord, thou givest us everything, at the price of an effort."