Let’s be more curious and less nosy

Why the difference between the two matters, personally and professionally

Growing up in a conservative rural community, I learnt that curiosity could be dangerous. Outwardly, my country teetered on the cusp of change after almost half a century of communism. Inwardly, its people were in the mental claws of the old regime, in which a slip of the tongue against the dictator could land you in serious trouble. Of the “time in prison” kind.

As Brian Grazer and Charles Fishman write in A Curious Mind. The Secret to a Bigger Life, “(…) there are still countries on earth where you have to be very careful at whom you aim your curiosity. Being curious in Russia has proven fatal, being curious in China can land you in prison.”

Before 1989, Romania was one of those places. In the countryside, people were particularly disinclined to surrender to their curiosity. Only decades before the Communist state had taken their land, their livestock, and in many cases their husbands, sons, brothers, and fathers, in the name of a classless society kept in check by a growing surveillance and security apparatus. Asking questions was a risk best taken by fools and police informants.

In my grandparents’ village, nosiness was in poor taste. Only simpletons asked about and commented on other people’s matrimonial issues, culinary prowess (or lack thereof), health and wellbeing. Of course, unseen webs of knowledge and nodes of information supplied the community with news. But little became public commentary. Nosiness had no place in a “proper” society.

By the time I left the village, aged seven, I had interiorized this life philosophy. Throughout school, intellectual curiosity overrode personal nosiness. I wanted to understand the how and the why of the world, and would only ask the who, what and when to illuminate the wider story. Break-ups and hook-ups, power struggles and any scandals in between rarely reached me. And I rarely sought them.

Rest assured, I wasn’t an ascetic figure who lived for intellectual pursuits only. I loved a good gossip, just like the next person. But I wasn’t going out of my way to find out personal things about others and I cared even less about passing information on. Who had the time anyways?

Fast-forward more than a decade, I’m surrounded by well-educated and worldly colleagues, who have made nosiness their life’s purpose and who are breeding a toxic work culture. And it is taking a toll on my and several of my colleagues’ mental health and self-esteem. Having a few up in everyone’s grill — 8 hours a day, 5 days a week — is an insidious form of mobbing. Questions like “Do you think X is having chemotherapy? She’s never here on a Tuesday,” “Has Y conceived by IVF?,” or “I wonder if Z is having marital problems or an affair. What do you think?” are the backdrop to too many work days. Each time I hear these questions, I’m itching to reply with “Wtf do you care?” instead of with my usual “I don’t know, it’s none of my business.”

Reflecting on this made me wonder: is curiosity a gift that democratic societies have spoiled by confusing it with nosiness? Internet at our fingertips, we are free to pursue answers to our most pressing questions yet spend much of our time shadowing tabloid sleuths. Don’t get me wrong. A good session of nosiness and gossip makes us come alive; we’re on the edge of our seats, leaning closer, breathing faster, on the brink of finding out something exciting. Our brain loves that stuff. Just like it loves many of our other guilty pleasures.

But listening to my parents’ and grandparents’ stories, I realized that those living in dictatorial regimes understood the value of being curious about bigger questions: How do citizens of free countries live? What is freedom and how do we achieve it? How can my country develop more? How can I escape from here? What will happen with my family if I flee? Every time people in autocratic regimes listen to “illegal” radio shows, get creative to access the uncensored internet or ask questions about the functioning of their country, they’re putting their lives where their curiosity is. They’re not looking to learn about the latest divorce. They’re not debasing curiosity with nosiness. Why are we?

You may ask: Don’t we love nosiness for all its revealing powers? Aren’t some beloved fictional detectives nosy? Aren’t real-life police officers and journalists describing themselves as nosy in their pursuit of the truth? Maybe. But maybe they are nosy about small facts but curious about the bigger processes at play, with divorces, affairs and monies the springboard for more ambitious questions and more illuminating answers about what makes us and our societies tick.

Nosiness that isn’t enriched by curiosity tells us that Steve is having an affair with Mary; but it tells us nothing about the reasons behind the affair, it asks nothing about the state of marriage in our changing societies, and it explores nothing of the nuanced world of monogamy. Nosiness reduces the world to a single snippet of information yet misses the journey to that point. It makes us poorer, emotionally and intellectually.

It is time to reclaim curiosity and put nosiness in its place. Are you ready? Then take this advice from Brian Grazer and Charles Fishman: “For it to be effective, curiosity needs to be harnessed to at least two other key traits. First, the ability to pay attention to the answers to your questions — you have to actually absorb whatever it is you’re being curious about. (…) The second trait is the willingness to act. (..) Curiosity can inspire the original vision of a moon mission. (..) It can replenish that inspiration when morale flags. (..) But at some point (…) the work gets hard, the obstacles become a thicket, the frustration piles up, and then you need determination.”