Curious: The Desire to Know, and Why Your Future Depends on It

Ian Leslie is a U.K.-based journalist and speaker who's fascinated by human nature. He's written about lying and curiosity for a number of popular publications, including the Financial Times, The New York Times, and The Economist. His first book, published in 2012, was titled "Born Liars: Why We Can't Live Without Deceit."

So, keep listening to learn why the internet age could be limiting our curiosity rather than expanding it, why we need to trade puzzles for mysteries, and why we should all question our teaspoons.

"Curious" is divided into three parts, each covering a different aspect of curiosity.

Part One looks at how curiosity works, including its biological and psychological drivers. Part Two investigates the history of curiosity, and how people have viewed it differently over the years. And Part Three is all about how to stay curious, no matter how old we are. This final section is a collection of general observations, rather than practical tips.

We like that Leslie takes such a well-rounded approach to the subject matter. It's this deep investigation that gives the book its punch. But before we get to any of that, let's talk about apes.

In the introduction, Leslie explores the concept of curiosity by telling the story of Kanzi. Kanzi was a highly intelligent ape who, without any direct training, learned how to communicate with humans using a specially designed keyboard. He was able to convey very complex ideas and even ask questions.

But Kanzi never asked the question "why?" He never exhibited curiosity about the world around him and how it worked. Leslie concludes that being smart is, therefore, not the same as being curious.

Kanzi's story is contrasted with the experience of the successful TV producer and director, John Lloyd, who was responsible for several cult comedy shows in the U.K., such as "Blackadder." Curiosity saved Lloyd after he fell into depression and had to stop work. He found he finally had time to read, and he uncovered an intense interest in the world around him.

He used this curiosity to pull away from the hold of depression, and he became engrossed in learning as much as he could about subjects ranging from Socrates, to gravity, to a blade of grass. It's a stark account of an individual's journey, which really drives home the importance of curiosity in our lives.

This is just one of the personal stories scattered throughout the book, along with quotes, research, and astute insights into the nature of curiosity. His ability to link theory with the real world enhances Leslie's points.

In Part One, he includes several accounts about both the perils and the positives of curiosity. These range from a young child whose curiosity about guns could have ended in disaster – but luckily didn't – to an academic whose curiosity to learn multiple languages took him around the world.

These stories support the main purpose of Part One – to explore what curiosity is, and Leslie defines two different types.

Diversive curiosity is what we experience when we scroll through Twitter or leap from link to link on the internet. It's a thirst for information that can be easily quenched. Once you've seen the latest tweet from your favorite celebrity, for example, you're happy to move on to the next thing.

This is different from epistemic curiosity, which is what Leslie is trying to encourage with this book. It's about diving into fewer subjects, but at a deeper level. This happens when you discover a new hobby and want to find out everything about it. Or when a global event happens, and you're eager to understand why it happened, and the impact it might have on a wider scale.

The book takes great pains to show how the short and sharp approach to curiosity – the diversive kind – is very unfulfilling. You rarely learn anything substantial, because you move on so quickly.

According to Leslie, the digital age we live in makes both kinds of curiosity possible, but it more often pushes us toward diversive curiosity. He argues that we're so inundated with knowledge that we find it hard to follow a train of thought for long. It's easy to get derailed by something else.

Our easy access to information is making us lazy in our pursuit of it. We tend not to memorize facts anymore, because we know we can get them whenever we want, wherever we are, thanks to our smartphones.

Of course, having instant access to the internet can be really useful, and not many people would suggest going backward. But the author's perspective certainly gives pause for thought about how we access information these days.

Let's now look at the difference between puzzles and mysteries, and why mysteries help us become more curious.

Leslie points out that puzzles have definitive answers, and once you have that answer you can move on. To solve puzzles, you normally ask "what." Mysteries, on the other hand, are all about the different layers of a topic. So, to solve a mystery you have to ask "why," and if there's one overarching theme of this book, it's that we should all ask "why" more often.

According to Leslie, a lot of the issues we face in life could be resolved if we began to trade puzzles for mysteries. Let's look at negotiations as an example. In a negotiation, both sides will ask what the other wants, and if those things can be delivered, there's a happy ending. But this is rarely the case. Negotiations are more likely to succeed if you focus on why the other party wants something. Why are they asking for it now? Why are they asking me?

Leslie brings home this message with a story about the troubles in Northern Ireland between 1968 and 1998. Jonathan Powell was a professional negotiator who liaised between the two opposing sides: those who wanted a united island of Ireland, and those who wanted to keep Northern Ireland in the United Kingdom. Acting as a go-between, Powell realized that the traditional methods of negotiation weren't working. It was only after he asked both sides why they felt so strongly about their beliefs that a resolution become possible.

Luckily, most of us don't negotiate on such a grand scale, but the principle applies in any conflict situation, large or small. If we show real epistemic curiosity – the focused, deep kind – we'll ask "why" more, and get many more useful answers. We might ask, why isn't my partner talking to me? Why don't I have any money? Or, why is there so much conflict in a certain part of the world?

As we move along in the book, we learn about another important theme – that knowledge is power.

Toward the end of Part Two, Leslie outlines the importance of knowledge in fueling our curiosity. And he debunks the popular myth that we can rely on curiosity alone as a teaching method.

There's a growing movement in education away from teachers imparting knowledge, in favor of letting children's natural curiosity direct their schooling. But Leslie argues that people need a basic level of knowledge before curiosity can take root and bloom.

By sharing personal accounts, anecdotes and research, he makes a compelling case for the role of knowledge in driving curiosity. Unless you have a basic awareness of something, you can never become truly curious about it. So, without classes in science, math, history, or any other subject, for example, children would have no starting point for their interests, and no reason to be curious.

We need knowledge to free up our brains for new ideas, he says. If we have to use up valuable brain power to add two plus two every time we come across it, we'll never have the mental energy to wonder what two plus three equals.

This section shows how Leslie isn't afraid to explore issues from different angles. He talks so positively about children learning through curiosity alone that you begin to think he supports it. He then goes on to say why he believes the exact opposite is true – that children still need traditional education to become curious.

This willingness to explore issues from both sides highlights another key theme of the book – that people should be willing to question everything they're told. Leslie's approach makes you realize that it's OK to challenge the status quo, and that you shouldn't just blindly follow the opinion of experts.

In Part Three, we hear about seven tips for staying curious, one of which is the need to question your teaspoons. This unusual advice shows how anything can become interesting if you pay enough attention to it – even teaspoons. You might ask questions like: who invented them? What are they made of? Why do we use them at all? What might the world look like if we just got rid of teaspoons altogether?

If you can learn to see mundane things like teaspoons with fresh eyes, you might think twice before dismissing something as "boring." It will help you develop a curious mindset, which in turn could lead to a great idea, or the ideal solution to a nagging problem. So, next time you've got a minute to spare, pick an object and ask as many questions about it as you can. Feel your curiosity take hold.

Of all the tips that Leslie shares in this third section, we think this is the easiest to put into practice. The others are a bit less practical than we'd like. For example, one is to "stay foolish." The idea here is to avoid the complacency that sometimes comes with success. If we stay foolish and don't rest on our laurels, we're more likely to stay curious, too. This certainly makes sense, but there's no practical advice on how to do it.

It's disappointing that Leslie promises tips to awaken or retain our curiosity, but largely fails to follow through. He shares the experiences of famous people such as Steve Jobs, Benjamin Franklin and William Friedman – and theirs are inspiring stories. But, unfortunately, Leslie doesn't translate them into any practical steps, instead leaving it up to the reader to figure it out. This is the main downfall of an otherwise insightful book.

Leslie also spends a lot of time talking about how to encourage children to stay curious as they get older, but talks very little about research into adult curiosity.

The combination of a lack of practical tips and a focus on children may leave some readers believing it's too late for them to reignite their curiosity. This feels like a letdown in a book that spends so much time emphasizing the benefits of being and staying curious.

There are a few other minor niggles. For instance, Leslie uses a lot of words that seem unnecessarily long or complex. This might be intentional, to encourage readers to become curious about the meaning of these words. But a clearer turn of phrase would drive the message home faster.

The narrative structure is also unusual and may put off some readers. The text jumps from topic to topic and story to story, seemingly at random. By the end, you become attuned to this style, but at the start it can feel jarring, and at some points it's hard to see how everything connects.

This is a book that you can dip in and out of, as you don't need to read one chapter to understand the next. But we'd recommend reading it in sequence, and in full, to get the most out of its scattered narrative.

It's also worth pointing out that this book is focused on the U.K. and is clearly intended for a western audience, even though it pulls in anecdotes and research from across the globe.

These criticisms aside, "Curious" is an insightful and inspiring read, full of interesting research that will make you think. Just don't expect a "how-to" guide, because the "doing" part is up to you.

"Curious, The Desire to Know, and Why Your Future Depends on It," by Ian Leslie is published by Quercus.

That's the end of this episode of Book Insights. Thanks for listening.