EP 007
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Full Transcript
Hi, so happy to have you here! This is where I share my thoughts on how design changed the way I think and do, and why I think design is simply a part of life. My name is Sandy, and I’m A Design Mentor.
In the previous episode, I shared thoughts on how life experiences shape our personal taste. But how open we are, how willing we are to expand, were really important. What is openness and willingness though? I’d like to think of them as our curiosity.
Through our upbringings, especially in school, we are presented with certain type of information. Information that helps us relate to the society/country/community around us. Information that helps us to hopefully become skillful individuals for our community. But do you notice children searching for information beyond the given? That their minds wander away from the known? This is the openness and willingness, this is the curiosity.
We see children develop interests outside of the classroom constantly, and we encourage this behavior, eager to see how or what they make out of it in the future. Once we become adults, we also often follow a learning path. We learn with our jobs. We acquire new skills to become better contributors. We stay on top of the happenings around our chosen industry to accrue confidence and knowledge. And we learn to achieve bigger and higher. Many of us look outside of work, to search and engage in activities that tickle our brain, to stay curious about the world.
We see people develop personal interests and we often call them hobbies. The hobbies are sometimes encouraged, sometimes not. How “successful” someone is with their hobbies, often equates to the amount of encouragement they will receive from others. This is interesting and I will share my thoughts on this in the next episode.
Then there comes a point in life, where we feel quite established in our world. We are pretty good at our jobs, our family is doing well, and nothing is really wrong. So we go through the days, without too many worries, and we perhaps become a bit complacent. We start to think what we know and what we can do now will be enough for life, and it is perfectly fine.
But is it really enough? For me, it wasn’t.
When I look out into the world, I often wonder, when would be the day that I know EVERYTHING about this world? It’s probably just not possible in this lifetime.
In the city I live in right now, there are so many details I never looked into, so many people I never met, so many stories I never heard. With all the subjects I’m interested in, each one still has a deep, deep well of knowledge or possibilities I’ve not dug into. There is so much to stay curious with, to play with. I don’t want to assume I’ve learned it all. And I don’t want to assume I know most of it.
Even if I feel like everything is enough right now. With time, new ideas and information reveal themselves. Just like how science is a living subject. What’s printed in the books today, could absolutely evolve into something different in a decade. Researchers are finding new threads of evidence, new strings of information, to evolve the current science, as well as technology.
I don’t mean to suggest that we can’t be satisfied with the way we live. But being open and willing to learn on top of our status quo, as the world changes around us, is one of the best human assets.
Perhaps, the way to keep evolving, just like science, is to give ourselves permission to welcome in the unknown. Perhaps, it’s to know that it’s okay to ask why. Perhaps, it’s to know not to assume, because underneath any surface, there is a story to be told. Perhaps, it’s to embrace the discomfort of shaking up our worlds just a little bit, to let in more colors and understanding.
I noticed this while learning to paint, picking up a new language, coping with relationships, and yes, trying to design well.
Curiosity is possibly one of the most important things for designers.
We are often tasked to understand the why, and to figure out the unknown. When I was tasked to design a sports scoreboard with eleven sports that I’ve rarely followed in my life, the only thing for me to do was to open myself up and stay curious with the operation of these sports, the mentality of the sport fans, and the business goals of the scoreboard provider.
I had to understand the nuances in all these sports. I had to experiment with different types of display design. And none of it would happen, if I didn’t stay curious and continue to ask questions throughout the entire design process. Even after the project, there are questions about its future evolution, about how technology could change the behavior of the users.
Curiosity has become a path for me to build personal relationships with the world. Without it, I would not be able to design. I would not have discovered the beautiful art of Kintsugi. I would not have learned to adapt to a different lifestyle in a totally different country. I would not have seen the lives of others as beautiful unique collages. Without it, I would not have understood the history of my people, and how they’ve impacted me.
It’s important to not take our current selves as an end all be all, because change is the constant. Let’s unleash our curiosity, no matter where we are in the world or in life. Let’s nourish ourselves by staying willing, by being open. Just like one of my favorite fictional characters, Elizabeth Zott, in the novel Lessons in Chemistry. The curiosity in trying a single recipe 78 times, got her to her favorite lasagne. And could there be room to improve it one more time? Very possibly, yes, as long as we stay curious.
Curiosity is what keeps us vibrant inside, at any age, any time. So tell me, how do you stay curious?
Next time, I will share some thoughts around success and failure.
If you’d like to hear more, please subscribe, and turn on your notifications, I am beyond excited to go on this journey with you.
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