The traditional education system rarely encourages random curiosity. Teacher’s fear, what if the focus on subjects wither off.
What does random curiosity achieve?
Random curiosity forms different mental models in the brain. Fast decisions have to be made and emotions have to be managed as well.
How to be randomly curious?
The habit of being randomly curious starts from an early age. I read about Israeli mothers encouraging tiny tots to ask better questions in school.
The internet as a wonderful tool
A google search is just a few clicks away. The world is indeed a small place today. A great skill to have at this day and age is to identify and focus on what matters for your purpose and interest.
Wide reading
It saves ages and eons of efforts, if one is aware of what not to do.A good fiction book may teach a lot about human behavior and workings of the society. While non-fiction will reflect on facts and possibilities.
Writing learnings/ideas down
helps one to shift the learnings from short term to long term memory. Summarize in your own words so as to make a 10 year old understand.
Experiencing and doing complex things
One should not hesitate working in different industries and verticals, as the perspectives thus gained are unique.
Observing and reflecting to internalize
It often lead to unique insights, which are not mentioned in the public domain. The exercise creates new neural pathways and connections, which help in arriving at ‘out of the box‘ solutions.