Inquisitiveness

I love to ask people about their work. I am fascinated with the technical and economic aspects of people’s work. I met an art appraiser yesterday and asked her how she manages to estimate a value for a piece of art. I got a wonderful introduction to the mechanics of the art world. A few days ago I asked a physicist friend of mine how his project to develop a new kind of nuclear reactor was coming, and I got a fascinating discussion on the economics of electric power generation. I love to learn these things, and to get a look inside other people’s fields and occupations.

But what also fascinates me is how few people ask me about my work. Almost all the people I question are more than happy to tell me in detail about their work and field of interest, though I did meet some understandable reticence when I once asked a Secret Service agent about the mechanics of his job.

Yet perhaps no more than 1 in 20 ask me about my work, and of those, perhaps only 1 in 50 show any real interest beyond simple politeness. That got me to watching other people, and I realized this is true generally. People in general are delighted to talk about themselves, but relatively uninterested in other people’s lives unless they happen to share an interest. Adults in general are not very inquisitive.

Now children are endlessly inquisitively. I happen to have the privilege of having several very bright grandchildren and meta-grandchildren (not blood relations, but we treat them as if they were), and they are endlessly inquisitive. I suspect most of those adults who are not inquisitive now were very inquisitive when they were children. Where and how did we beat it out of them? And why?