Word for 2024: Curiosity
Over on Bluesky, Kelly Sue DeConnick asked what word we wanted to bring forth for the new year. I thought about that for a while. I think my answer is "curiosity."
My whole life, I have had an uneasy relationship with interests and hobbies. I LOVE interests and hobbies. But when I was a child, and even a young adult, I resented the way that people who heard I liked something would then assign it to my personality. "Oh, you like dogs? Guess you're really a dog person now!"
As an older adult I now understand that this is something humans do, we hang information we know about a person on the hook with their name, or put it in the same box (pick your metaphor,) and when we think about people we think of those associated characteristics. Mostly about people we do not know very well. "Oh, Brenda in finance? She loves succulents, let's get her a succulent calendar for her birthday!" That sort of thing. It's not malicious at all, and certainly is mostly well-intentioned.
As a child and teen, I felt very ... constrained, I guess, by these descriptors. Like, if I was a Dog Person, could I also like horses and dragons? If I was a Book Person, could I also like comics and riding my bike? Why was I a Book Person and not a Bike Person? How did people decide which things I did made me a Type and which did not? And if I did something outside of what a Dog Person or a Book Person was supposed to do or allowed to do according to this arbitrary and never-explained scheme, people would comment, like, "oh, I thought you were a Dog Person? Why do you like cats?"
I never understood this.
As a young adult, I would find myself having intense, short-lived interests which I tried to HIDE from people. I did not want to have the conversation cycle of "oh are you into this now what happened to the other interest" over and over again. I know realize it was probably friendly and affectionate interest in me and my life, but it felt like I was violating some sort of social norm that I didn't understand. Over and over again.
In hindsight, I now recognize that what was happening is that I would move from special interest to special interest. That the intensity of my interest gave the impression that this was part of my personality or identity. And that the short-lived nature of the special interest always surprised people who were equating *intensity* with *longevity.*
Having figured all of this out, I am trying to gently nurture the love of learning new things that had gotten a little bit squashed over the decades. I am sort of ... rolling around in things I always meant to get around to learning about. A short and not at all exhaustive list of things I intend to try and learn something about, at some point soon if not quite in 2024 includes:
WWI
WWII
the history of my neighborhood
the history of my city
my specific ancestry
the early middle ages in Europe
The Gilded Age
Korean cooking
Chinese cooking basics
tablet weaving
stories from my family elders
wire weaving, both Viking and more generally
sashiko mending
leatherwork
making chain mail
Will any of these interests last past an initial enthusiasm? Who knows! Is that a problem? No it is not! The only potential difficulty will be if I buy a lot of things and have to find somewhere to put them away.
So, yes.
2024.
Curiosity.
My whole life, I have had an uneasy relationship with interests and hobbies. I LOVE interests and hobbies. But when I was a child, and even a young adult, I resented the way that people who heard I liked something would then assign it to my personality. "Oh, you like dogs? Guess you're really a dog person now!"
As an older adult I now understand that this is something humans do, we hang information we know about a person on the hook with their name, or put it in the same box (pick your metaphor,) and when we think about people we think of those associated characteristics. Mostly about people we do not know very well. "Oh, Brenda in finance? She loves succulents, let's get her a succulent calendar for her birthday!" That sort of thing. It's not malicious at all, and certainly is mostly well-intentioned.
As a child and teen, I felt very ... constrained, I guess, by these descriptors. Like, if I was a Dog Person, could I also like horses and dragons? If I was a Book Person, could I also like comics and riding my bike? Why was I a Book Person and not a Bike Person? How did people decide which things I did made me a Type and which did not? And if I did something outside of what a Dog Person or a Book Person was supposed to do or allowed to do according to this arbitrary and never-explained scheme, people would comment, like, "oh, I thought you were a Dog Person? Why do you like cats?"
I never understood this.
As a young adult, I would find myself having intense, short-lived interests which I tried to HIDE from people. I did not want to have the conversation cycle of "oh are you into this now what happened to the other interest" over and over again. I know realize it was probably friendly and affectionate interest in me and my life, but it felt like I was violating some sort of social norm that I didn't understand. Over and over again.
In hindsight, I now recognize that what was happening is that I would move from special interest to special interest. That the intensity of my interest gave the impression that this was part of my personality or identity. And that the short-lived nature of the special interest always surprised people who were equating *intensity* with *longevity.*
Having figured all of this out, I am trying to gently nurture the love of learning new things that had gotten a little bit squashed over the decades. I am sort of ... rolling around in things I always meant to get around to learning about. A short and not at all exhaustive list of things I intend to try and learn something about, at some point soon if not quite in 2024 includes:
WWI
WWII
the history of my neighborhood
the history of my city
my specific ancestry
the early middle ages in Europe
The Gilded Age
Korean cooking
Chinese cooking basics
tablet weaving
stories from my family elders
wire weaving, both Viking and more generally
sashiko mending
leatherwork
making chain mail
Will any of these interests last past an initial enthusiasm? Who knows! Is that a problem? No it is not! The only potential difficulty will be if I buy a lot of things and have to find somewhere to put them away.
So, yes.
2024.
Curiosity.