CURIOSITY // PROMPT

Got Curiosity?

A Counter Arts advocacy prompt response.

“We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.” ~ Walt Disney

Sometimes when I’m tagged for a prompt, an idea immediately sparks and I respond to it right away. Other times the question needs to percolate for a few days. Then there are times when the prompt feels bigger and I need to plant the question inside me and wait a while to see what grows.

When I first read Squeeze the Avocado’s prompt “What Do You Advocate For?” I had to pause and think. Like Will Hull’s reply, I had to dig into this question and consider for what cause I could be called an advocate. There are so many big issues that are important to me, but could I really be called an advocate for any of them? Do I really put my heart and soul behind them?

After giving this some serious thought the only thing I think I can truly be called an advocate for is curiosity. Not a cause per se, but something I’m definitely passionate about.

Curiosity asks questions and listens to the answers. Curiosity seeks to understand. Curiosity opens our minds to new possibilities. Curiosity drops our defenses and inches us closer to something.

Curiosity wants to know.

Curiosity doesn’t assume it has all the right answers. Curiosity seeks to learn. Curiosity leads us down new paths.

It’s for all these reasons that I think curiosity just might be the seed from which advocacy is birthed. When I’m genuinely curious about something I often find empathy and compassion kicking in. A new level of understanding motivates me to get behind a person or a cause.

Curiosity helps us understand what’s going on with someone when we might not have any first-hand knowledge ourselves. When we ask questions of someone different from us or acting in a way we don’t understand we begin to see the reasons behind their actions. We begin to see what it might be like to walk in someone else’s shoes.

Curiosity helps us better understand what it’s like to live with depression. Or racial or gender inequality. Or a health or physical challenge.

Curiosity seeks to understand someone else’s struggles. It’s through curiosity that we begin to see we all have wounds. It’s through curiosity that we begin to see we all have challenges and hard stuff we’re working on. Curiosity opens us up to listen with both our ears and our hearts.

So I invite you to join me and give curiosity a try. There’s so much out there to learn and so many people who could use our understanding and support.

kasey sparks, © 2021

Thank you for reading. To quote Ram Dass, “We’re all just walking each other home.” If you’d like to join me on the journey, click here. If you’d like to access thousands of writers and their soul-stirring stories on Medium, click here.

Thank you, Will Hull, for yet another great prompt tag. Here’s his advocacy response along with Squeeze’s original post.