The Foundation of the Mind: Curiosity by DJ Ghaffari

I believe in curiosity. Curiosity describes how I learn and what I think. Especially when curiosity results in a life lesson and an injury.

November at 2017, Thanksgiving week. The month of family and appreciation. I was visiting my family in Arizona for the week. My overall experience was interesting even within the few hours of being there. On the first day, I was passing time by playing with my three younger cousins, indoors; we decided to play tag.  Then, at one point, one of my cousins was “it”, so I had attempted to maneuver around them on a nearby couch.

However, my foot had caught in one of the slits of the couch, hit the very bottom frame, and effectively ripped my skin open from a sharp, exposed spring. I was taken to the hospital and got 13 stitches in my foot, and almost lost my pinky toe. I couldn’t walk for 11 days.  This action had caused a traumatizing experience that makes me think about it even to this day.

My belief is that, in an odd way, curiosity has a lingering effect and always remains in our minds. No matter when curiosity happens, curiosity will remain to wait in our minds for the moment to be used-giving further reason and questioning of our knowledge.

When I remember the memory now, I start to question it the more I think of it. This small, yet an increasing dose of curiosity from this, has triggered a chain reaction in my brain. Such a small event has brought me to think of the bigger picture- What do I think of it? How is this important?

I am grateful for the incident solely of the aftermath. It brought me to a new learning experience, that expanded the memory to new boundaries and questions. It taught me to think bigger. Do not be minimalistic, but think more of each part of the incident, one by one. There are some questions that are still wandering, like: Why did I decide to make the choice? How could I have avoided the incident and not get injured? In all, I think that it's the small questions that matter and broaden out my curiosity to unique lengths. My perception from what I experienced, is that of how all knowledge should be classified as important, no matter how you understand it.