Curiosity and Discontent: similar dissimilars. You can’t have the latter without the former, but the former without the latter is humanity’s delight.

Discontent arises from a comparison – between where you are and some other state where you aren’t. That state may be recollected or imaginary or, as often happens, the two combined, but without it, you’d never feel restive where you are, since you couldn’t be anywhere else. Dog-pal Henry has his moods, but he doesn’t pine for elsewhere. His moment is ample because where else is there?

The human brain meanders from Is into Was, Will Be, Might Be, Never Was, curiously inspecting these hypothetical locales. Heaven, Hell, the Good Old Days are equally fictitious. The comparative inadequacy of the present grieves. If only, if only, if only!

I work hard to be happy where I am. I didn’t use to. Wherever I was was a shabby waystation on my road to glory. One advantage of old age is the disappearance of a more enticing future. With decrepitude around the corner, I’m in no hurry to advance.

Enforcing contentment takes effort and discipline. I still dream of grandeur, despite my prohibitions. I wake disgusted by my avidity but hey, whoever’s in charge of my fantasies it isn’t me.

Curiosity distracts from dismay. Exploring I’m not thinking about me, but about my quarry, enticed by the wideness of the world. When I’m writing, for example, I do not exist, perplexed by the impossibility of expression, holding on for dear life. Even writing about myself I am absent, disinterestedly inspecting what I think and why. Words tease me to wary depths. If they don’t, I quit and do something else, for my brain is stale.

For peace of mind, I preach contentment. Be glad where you are! For delight, I urge curiosity. Kick your mind out of doors and let it roam!

These days, a plethora of attractions enfeebles curiosity. Screens keep minds too involved to invent. More and more, learning means pushing the right buttons. I love ChatGPT as a brilliant, quick, and amiable research assistant, but not as my tutor. I decline its kind offer to compose these missives. What I haven’t discovered on my own I’ll never know.

Humanity, by all reports, is getting sadder as we grow more prosperous. Rates of depression, suicide, psychosis, mood disorders are trending upward for all brackets. The explanation for this apparent paradox, I’m convinced, is mental sloth. We don’t exercise our brains enough, so they atrophy. We’re too busy consuming to conceive. Screen-watchers are recipients of a readied reality; book-readers participants in the creation of a reality.

Discovery is a stimulant like no other. Don’t you feel jazzed when some clue clicks into place? A-hah is the anodyne for Oh-no. Discovery makes us feel worthy, potent, promising. When my brain is busy, I want to live; when it’s dull, not so much.

The object of education should be invention, not retention. Train explorers! Schools should be the beginning of inquiry, not its end. Teach whys, not whats. Socrates got it right: wake students’ brains with incessant prodding.

Our world would be happier if we darkened all our screens. Mental health no less than physical demands exercise. We live in a vast, abundant, beautiful world only if we open our eyes. Paradise is a state of mind, not a fixed address.

I am prone to despair. Headlines horrify, my mind melts. Curiosity is my cure. Force my intellect to get busy seeing, saying. “Get your butt off that couch,” I chide my brain.

“Once you stop learning, you start dying,” said Einstein.