Curiosity

24.09.20

By Veks, Year 13

Imagine a scene, you’re sat under a tree in a vast green field, just taking in the scenery, maybe even doodling on a sheet of paper or basking in the sun.
Then, suddenly, a piece of fruit falls on the ground next to you. What would you first thoughts be?

After the obvious WHAT THE HECK WAS THAT moment, what would you do next?

Would you just go on with your day? It’s pretty reasonable to do so, it didn’t land on you or anything like that, so why should you be bothered about it?

Or would you wonder what the reason for the apple falling was in the first place?

It’s a wonderful and quite useful gift that we humans have. The gift of curiosity. I mean think about it, curiosity is what got us to the point we are at right now. It gave us the steam engine, the printing press, smartphones, world-wide connection, technology as a whole. It got us outside of our home planet and even to the Moon.

Now obviously, these weren’t simple tasks in the least. They needed another special ingredient in order to be followed through. A quality that I believe to be an essential side-kick to curiosity and, in the true Barney fashion, that’s being brave.

In the words of Isaac Newton: “No great discovery was ever made without a bold guess”.

Having the confidence to question human life and it’s limits as well as to make an assumption while trying to find an answer, takes a great amount of courage.

It also takes courage to start, and I’m aware that a number of you will probably think the same way millions of others have. You might think you’re not good enough, thinking: “Oh I just don’t have a knack for it” or “I’m just not smart enough”.

But no matter who you are, you are an untapped source of knowledge and I guarantee you that every single person possesses at least one piece of information that no one else has, which makes them the only person who can use that information to discover something amazing.

Georgie might discover a revolutionary method of painting, Ryan might just solve one of the Millennium Problems, and I’m sure we all have the potential to do something just as amazing as that, if not even more amazing. All it takes is enough courage to start.

As part of the interview that the Senior Monitor team underwent, we were asked a question: “What will your legacy as a Senior Monitor be?”.  So, I ask you the same question now; what will YOUR legacy be? What will people remember you for? Will they remember you as someone whose curiosity got the better of them and they achieved an incredible feat? Or will they remember you as a person who didn’t even try?

Be brave, probe, ask, explore, get intrigued, tinker; have the confidence to question life.

Millions of people saw the apple fall, but Newton asked why.