The radical power of being incurious

The radical power of being incurious

When resisting curiosity is an act of revolution.

Tanmoy Goswami
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Do you believe life without curiosity is useless? Do you judge potential friends or partners based on whether they have a curious mind? Are you working extra hard to raise curious children and struggle with FOMO? Then today's story is just for you. Welcome to another edition of my Happy Things series. It may change the way you think about curiosity forever, and leave you the happier for it. PS: If you are new to this platform and are curious how it survives – well, it survives because readers like you support it. Watch this 82-second video to understand why. And then join them by choosing any of the options below.

On April 28, 1770, the British Royal Navy research vessel HMS Endeavour made its way into a calm, deep bay on the eastern shore of New Holland. We now know this place as Australia. Endeavour became the first European vessel to reach this remote corner of the world, giving its commander, a 42-year-old explorer named James Cook, a hallowed place in the history books.

But something else happened on that fateful April day that's missing from mainstream history. As they disembarked from the ship, Cook's men were in for a rude surprise. One of them, a naturalist named Joseph Banks, spotted four small canoes inside the bay, from which indigenous inhabitants of this 'new' land were catching fish. To Banks's puzzlement, they completely ignored the imposing ship and its important-looking occupants, staying focused on the fish instead.

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