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The Art Of Curiosity

July 2026

santuary curiosity wonder knowledge mental health

I’ve been reflecting on this for some weeks and months, about this sense of curiosity. Curiosity of what? Of basically everything. And I believe I can’t redact everything in a single article, it deserves a book about it and I’ll write it.

The reason why I last posted about writing a series of articles about Zig and RHEL and OSs and there’s nothing yet is because I’m doing radical changes in my life, habits and behaviours-although, if you wanna see my updates on Zig, check my repo; I’m about to learn allocators and pointers, they work slightly different on C since we do have both runtime and compile-time objects. But this article is an inflection point about curiosity.

I’m making radical decisions about myself and my life and eternity and the relationship I have with myself and my eternal objects (that includes my sanctuary), as well as some other personal stuff . I’ve been busy on reflecting on these decisions about life. Since I have a systematic mind, uncertainty (i.e questions that don’t have a quick answer) is a figure part of my life. And this article is going to relate the basic foundations of curiosity raised on uncertainty, wonder funded with questions…. something that I’ve asked myself these days since I followed a different route now that I’ve finished university. I essentially drove this with solitude, reflection, 70s env music like Tangerine Dream and Jean-Michel Jarre and my sanctuary. In fact, while writing this, I’m listening to Pop Corn by Gershon Kingslay (1969).

I didn’t go to my prom’s grad or any ceremonial social event during my grad time. I certainly didn’t go to the degree’s day, a day where my college takes photos for then those are being posted on social media-being posted on linkedin and instagram. I’m grateful with my parents for that matter. But I own my own thoughts as well. I do respect people who did it and I’m happy they finished college and pressure from their peers and teachers. I’m happy for my friends. I do believe that college gives people a solid answer on how to react and act inside a global business world with metrics, KPIs, deliverables, rapidness. We live in a world filled with rapidness, cuz it’s been well taught once you finish college, you have to build a corporative career and to work in a very prestigious company like Google or Microsoft… in fact, people assert that goal as their only and only job-related goal in life. It’s good, as long as they choose it. And most of the times, it isn’t as that. Why? Because most of the times, people don’t really know they can question it. Questioning things means uncertainty, means something unknown is about to come up and means driving into the uncertainty is risky. Risky? You prob are wondering “yayo, what the hell are you talking about..?”

Our primitive minds came up from people who hunted animals and build tribes to survive. Social tribes are being conformed with people who hunted, people who cooked and people who procreated other people. Probably there were cases were these 3 things were adjunted to one person, to a couple, to a family of 15 ppl. This behaviour spread through generations. In the industrial revolution, mainly males had long-extensive work hours while his partner stayed on home. In modern work, it is essentialy the same but instead people in general do work to maintain their families, to build an environment for the next generation and to find a shortest path for survival, to optimize resources. As simple as that. Is a well-known path designed and patched into your primitive mind; a mind designed to look out for a shortest path to satisfy their corporal needs. Note that this references primitive needs like sexual impulses, procreation and survival needs like food and water. Unfortunately, modern tech knows this and transformed it into a profitable business (i.e. tiktok, instagram…). This is a deeper topic I’ll not go down to cuz it deserves a sole article with my arguments about a radical digital detox in life in replacement of offline activities-such as a nature walk, self-talking, reading in my sanctuary, etc… In fact, if you are interested about it go and read “Digital Minimalism” by Cal Newport. I’ve been reading it and I love it.

Like I said before, uncertainty is risky-means that you have questions without answers; a primitive mind hates an unanswered question. That’s why it needs to classify things. Yep, classification. Lemme explain about it: Once you are/were a kid, you barely know about life-you barely know about animals, computers, astronomy, quantum mechanics. You barely know everything and anything. Once you see something new, you feel something that comes up for the first time: wonder-wonder for the first time seeing something you have never ever seen before. An insect? Green grass? A moon like Titan (the only great moon with an atmosphere in the Solar System)? Gravity working towards a Subaru Impreza WRC 2003 driven by Petter Solberg in Stage 4 in the Montecaerlo WRC championship? I don’t really know, certainly you had one thing that made you see it multiple times. I had (and have) these things. I’m a car fella, I love cars and planes and I love how wind works towards those military jet carriers. Once I developed this obsessive curiosity on how computers work, I started to research and to build my own thoughts about it by seeing in full realtime how ping(8) works or how ICMP packets are being sent and debugging C executables with strace(1) and how BSD was born and which minis were used to port it (the VAXXXXXX-11/780) and how a race condition works in dynamic memory… and it goes on and on and on

But see, once you grow up, your parents took you to kindergarden, then elementary school, then jr. high school… and goes on. Most schools nowadays have techniques to teach a large amount of topics in a short time. Since you are learning history, geography, maths, biology, etc.. at the same time, teachers have methods to teach topics based on a class syllabus. And prob that class syllabus is not updated. Even if it’s updated, is a global syllabus-a syllabus that a teacher had for alumni. The same thing they taught them, they are teaching it for you now. Note that learning with a syllabus in hand is not bad. In fact, it could be a useful guide when students barely know about something. But also note that global school syllabuses are designed with simplicity, effectiveness and deliverables in mind, not uncertainty and wonder. Why? Cuz developing a sense of wonder takes time, takes pretty much time to ask things nobody asked before. A modern world hates when something takes time. When something takes time, the economy shakes. Elementary schools know this fact. Knowledge is now being transformed into a deriverable that shows you learn or in fact, you “learn” something and now you are good to go for the next level. Global syllabuses are designed for deriverables and effectiveness. And when something is designed for deriverables, it makes you ask less and accept more.

Yea for sure, each syllabus goes harder once you reach a new level, but they are designed with the same principles. How many times you feel needed more time to learn something specifically (i.e. vectorial calculus) but the professor was already giving instructions for this sunday’s assignments so then he moves on to the next topic and that desire to learn more was blurred or postponed? It happened to me so many times… especially on college. Each level, most of the schools, have these principles in mind. And something interesting happens: If you get repetitive exposure of constant deliverables, fast and multiple topics, your mind starts to develop new synaptic connetions so now, you know that a learning process is raised on deliverables requested by school. But there’s more. And doing deadline assignments makes you ask less and accept more.

When you are in junior high school, you are essentially a pre-adolescent or adolescent. This is an epoch when people start to develop some kind of identity. Your prefrontal cortex is still developing while your limbic system is already developed. This essentially means that your logical reasoning about mature decisions and things you wanna learn are slightly blurred. This is a normal behaviour, don’t feel bad about it. But it is basically as that. But now note that for the very first time, you feel something’s different. Yup, you discovered it, now you start to discover how you especifically feel to a certain context or stimuli. And now you discover that for the very first time, you are being part of a group of friend, you feel good cuz now you are part of smth that’s not our family and that help human beings to start developing an identity. It’s some kind of a tribe. That feels great huh? Feels good cuz primitives formed tribes for survival needs. It essentially the same idea although humans don’t need to hunt mamuts anymore. This new tribe also develops habits; if your friends like to go out on a party, you may go with them; if they want to hang out on sundays, you may hang out with them on sundays; if they like studying (which is rare but not impossible) then you study with them. But also they can learn things from you-means that if you are that type of person that discovered going to museums is a good thing, maybe or maybe not, they are going to go with you. It’s a normal (and in some cases, a healthy) behaviour. This identity that I mentioned before, is funded by the idea you are now being part of a tribe that’s not your family. This identity helps you notice what you like and don’t like but since your cortex is not developed yet, it is very moldable. And most of this modern world pushes you to learn things raised on what the industry is asking for people to learn. And if your friends start learning on just what the teacher is saying and assignments they are teaching, you are going to probably do the same thing. And this tribe behaviour makes you ask less and accept more.

And there is something interesting you guys are probably waiting (or not), it’s loveeee. Like I said, your prefrontal cortex is still developing. A pre-adolescent starts to feel things he/she had never felt before when it comes to physical attraction. They be like: “omg that girl is so beautiful” or “that guy is so handsomeee it is in my same classroom”. It is a complete normal behaviour. Scientifically, when you are a adolescent, major biological developments take place. It is now when the sexuality takes place; adrenal glands begin secreting a component called DHEA, which is basically a weak androgen responsible of the manufacture of sex hormones. Then the gonadal activation comes in-the process when the hypothalamus activates testes and ovaries which causes a surge in estrogen and testosterone, which now trigger romantic thoughts that a person never experiencied before. It is a reality that when you feel that person is so “beautiful”, it’s actually the mind telling you there’s a possible opportunity to procreate a new person. Huges levels of dopamine and oxytocin are triggered during this process. This is the epoch when boys approach to girls so they can ask her out for a date. That “date” is an opportunity for them to know each other if they are compatible. But see. in a pre-adolescent everything and anything makes them compatible. A romantic relationship in junior high school is some kind of practice for real-world scenarios. A breakup in junior high school / or even high school, is a dopamine low hit without further real-world consequences (divorces, legal battles, etc..) and for the very first time, somebody rejected you. That hits really hard. It is essentially a practice for real-world scenarios when somebody rejects you. But… sometimes this feeling of attachment could be strong. And this feeling of attachment makes you ask less and accept more.

Once you go to high school, these feelings go stronger. School now teaches harder topics but there’s more people inside your classroom and your activities. You start to meet new people, you start to notice what topics you like and don’t like and start to classify them. But in a highly-stimulated social interaction, it is likely you will prefer going to hang out on sundays rather than studying a complex formula unless you have an exam. Yup, check this out: unless you have an exam. And then you start developing feelings for a specific person (i.e. a girl that helps you with your hwk or a boy that takes you to your home), those feelings are going to be paramount. Note that some of the gossips you now remember as an adult came from high school moments. High school is the exact moment ppl start to develeping feelings for each other mutually. Most of the cases, the mind prioritizes a strong romantic bond rather than a obsessive curiosity of how something specifically works. It’s a quite normal thing, a primitive mind needs strong romantic bonds for survival, both them and the next person they are going to possibly procreate. Casual sex on parties or a friend’s reunion, or cuddling together very hard is essentialy a practice of this behaviour. Also it helps to trigger oxytocin, an hormone released when there’s physical contact. Most of the people like physical contact, it helps them to know they are in a safe place. Cientifically, they are building a survival environment for the next gen. And this survival environment makes you ask less and accept more.

Why am I telling you this when the sole purpose of the article was about curiosity? You see, a mind in love is a blurred mind by nature. Notice that I said “blurred”, I didn’t say “unable to learn”. Your logical reasoning is blurred. It is a normal state. If that other person likes you, they go out and eventually you managed to be his/her romantic partner. You start to see everything is good, you feel good, is a moment when everything is a rose coming up through your head and that person you see is an angel. I know how it feels, I remembered myself now then in that feeling back in the day hehe. You really can’t stop thinking about that person (the thing I’ll never be part of that state again is other thing). That state is called limerence-it is a romantic state characterized with intrusive thoughts, deep idealization and an exhaustive need of reciprocation (i.e. she/he responds your messages as well as you respond them). Dorothy Tennov brought this concept in her book “Love and limerence” (1979). This is a complex thing that also deserves another article (viewed as a logical concept) but take note that is an altered state of love when people can’t think any other things rather than that person. Curiosity needs basically a lot of resources of the mind. You can’t think about C pointers all the time while you are in love. And this feeling of limerence makes you ask less and accept more.

Noowww, most of the people go to college. College is a special moment when people start to become independently, emotionally, personally or even finantialy. Most of the romantic relationships that last are being built there. Most of the modern concepts are being taught there with a global syllabus as well but with specific concepts. Specifically curated concepts that may be updated according to new IEEE or AAAS standards. However, since you are now specializing in something in particular, low-level topics are now being taught, but with same principles in mind: the more deliverables you have, the less time you will have to ask things. In my specific college, this syllabus is called Tec 21 or Tec 26. Global syllabuses are carefully designed to transform college students into high-valuable employees in a good company. Whether you wanna ask or not, college syllabuses are not designed for that and whether you wanna dedicate your time to contribute to FOSS projects, they are going to teach you repetitive tech and ticket managment. And this helps to build job routines. And these routines make you ask less and accept more.

Most of the people at this time already know what they like and don’t like (note that what they want to be or to do is totally different on what they like..). They choose a major, they choose their professors if they’re able to. If you managed to keep your romantic relationship, after 18-30 months, limerence becomes a routine (i.e. sunday becomes the day they stay together to cuddle themselves or whatsoever thing you guys like to do). If not, probably you will meet new people along the way. Modern relationships are being built with repetitive-like environments when involves the same people (i.e. a school project).

Well, remember the question I asked before: why am I telling you this? Cuz the human’s biology is optimized for mind shortcuts, for rapidness movements, for procreation. Most of the things we learn at school are based also on these foundations but also humans feed these foundations. It is natural pattern people follow in order to satisfy their needs. Romantic relationships, a good-salary 9-5 job, tribe validation, are part of these needs. School helps people to gain these needs as well.

There’s no time to ask unrelated questions cuz that means uncertainty; it does not mean something that’s already brought up to the table of reality. People develop feelings among their partners because its a natural thing. However, did ever they ask themselves they really wanted to feel those feelings consciously? Did they ask is it normal to have those such levels of dopamine and norepinephrine levels? Noup.

What’s curiosity? Defined by myself, is a state when the mind needs to know more and more and more, beyond limits, beyond everythig. Carl Sagan said once in an interview: “My experience is, you go talk to kindergarten kids or 1st-grade kids, you find a class full of science enthusiasts. You go and talk to 12th-grade students and there’s none of that. They’ve become leaden and incurious. Something terrible has happened between kindergarten and 12th grade, and it’s not just puberty.” (see reference in the first quote of this video). My response to that is people stopped developing curiosity in favor of survival needs, tribe acceptation and known routines among their families, friends and romantic partners. That’s why I explained a whole thing before about this thing. And when there’s no curiosity, people classify things. Classification means when something qualifies for an internal rule and keeps it there. A kid can stop and observe an insect for 20 mins asking himself: “omg why does it have 3 eyes?” “why its color is red with black pop ups?”. An adult classifies and sees an insect, then he/she classifies it as “insect” and keeps his/her way cuz his wife/husband is waiting at home

Curiosity is a muscle-means you have to constantly enforce it. Means you need to go against the tide sometimes, asking things nobody asked before. Means you are going up against your own limits and going after them means you will need more time-which means you will have less time for social interaction. A systematic mind like mine and prob more people reading this article, needs solitude to fully comprehend how a specific thing works (i.e. Bell states in a quantum circuit). Going against the tide when the tribe wants you to follow their path or when a romantic partner tells you to go out when you are in a completely flow state. It’s when someone shows tenacity to learn something.

Curiosity means developing that sense of wonder again. How? Personally, I do the following:

These is a not to-do list, this is only my personal experience. Could be useful to you or not, but note that whatever habits you have, if you really wanna build curiosity towards yourself and the universe that’s surrounding you, you have to accept less and ask more. All habits must follow this simple rule

You have to accept less and ask more.

My sanctuary is my Phirae, is a highly customized, physically reinforced and jailbroken iPhone 4 that’s now my eternal Unix pocket and thing I take with me everywhere despite society rules. Phirae also helps me to hack my penfield homunculus. Back in my previous definition, it was Filion, my beautiful Thinkpad, but I discovered it caused more anxiety than greatness. I’m also rewriting the way how I interact with my personal objects (not including Phirae cuz it is my sanctuary) and rewriting they way how I work externally and internally. That’s why I’ve not published any article yet.

But today’s an inflection point. My next article is going to related about Zig and memory management in Zig’s runtime objects and basic concepts (for now, then I’ll move on with other complex concepts). Zig in particular is a programming language school, didn’t teach me or didn’t encourage me to learn it. I discovered Zig a solely way to program as an art and not as a KPI. I will write that article once I finished the 2nd chapter. Check my repo for updates. Soon, prob next or next next week.

I decided not to go to any social events at my college while graduating cuz I indirectly feed these behaviors. Also I wanted some time with complete solitude. If I wanna greet my parents, I’d do something tangible with their name on it, and I will.

Curiosity is an art because there are multiple ways to ask youself things nobody asked before. Programming is an art because there are multiple solutions to a specific problem. Maybe you solved this problem using trees, I solved it using DFA…

Wonder is a form of curiosity cuz it helps people discover things without classifing them instantly.

It’s well said creativity is the intelligence having fun. Well, curiosity is the intelligence having time to assimilate things

Never stop asking things

Never lose your inner kid’s mentality. Always seek for something more, always ask yourself something more what society says.

Never stop learning

Develop curiosity.

Develop greatness.

Develop eternity.

exit(0);

© 2026 Yayo   •