I have stipulated–this cannot be “proven” in a formal sense since I have also rejected the utility of the notion of ontology–that there are three elements of consciousness (which is to say that part of us which chooses what to pay attention to in an infinitely complex world) which, when combined in a moving system over time, tend to generate an emergent property which is best labelled “Goodness”. They are the rejection of self pity, perseverance in chosen tasks, and a commitment to perception, to the always present possibility of the need to change ones mind.
Within this framework, it could be argued that dullness and incuriosity (I’m getting spell check on that; if it is not a word, yes it is, and you just read and understood it) are incompatible with that wind I call Goodness. Someone who does the “right” things day after day without asking WHY, is sooner or later bound to do the wrong thing in the name of the right thing. The flaw that will then emerge as apparent badness will actually already be very old, even fossilized, and merely manifested as a result of changed circumstances.
Hell, this is about me, my vanity. I’ll just switch to open mode preaching. The way I personally choose to live my life is to be curious about EVERYTHING. I am always asking myself how things are put together: how cars work, how roads are built, how buildings are built, why grass is here and not there, why clouds have formed in one way and not another.
As I have likely pointed out, one of the least common questions people ask seems to be is: why this and not something else? What could or should be there instead? One obvious example was in the Great Depression, when a recovery that SHOULD have been there was not. We have only had one Great Depression, and only had one economic downturn in the government aggressively tried to intervene. Coincidence? Of course not. Economics–despite the efforts of the “professionals” to convince the lay public otherwise–is not complicated. When something like 90% of business owners think the government is anti-business, and when punitive tax rates are in place, then no business investment takes place, no jobs are created, and short blips become life-crushing epic events.
What made me think about this was I was doing some intervals on a football field. Since it’s winter most of it is brown and seemingly dead. But scattered in some places were bright green patches of grass, only perhaps 4″ across, and surrounded by brown grass. Why was this? I spent a couple minutes pondering, and then noticed that all the grass outside the field was also green. Then I noticed it thriving along one fence line, but not the others. Then I looked at the wind patterns, and decided that was the direction of the wind, and concluded that two types of grass must be in place, one for the field, one for around the field, and that some seeds must have been blown over when the outside field was seeded.
This may or may not be right, but the point I want to make is that there is endless fascination possible in even the most dull places and doing the most dull things. You can practice the capacity for problem solving and perception in even the most dull jobs, if you decide to.
This is a bit of an “I’m so cool” post, but trust me, I know better. This is just one data point. There are many I see no reason to put in the public domain which argue decisively for humility as the best policy.
This is posted in the hope it may be useful for someone.
Edit: I will add that it occurred to me that the above might make me seem like the most tediously dull human being on the planet. I was quite literally watching grass grow. That possibility amuses me. Like everyone else I like talking about myself, but I definitely don’t take myself too seriously. I’m only on this planet a short time, and burdened with so many limitations–like all of us–that it is easier counting the few rays of light that poke through the rock that encases me than figuring out all the ways I can’t move.