The “C” List — The Case for Curiosity in Times of Crisis.

Jacci Pillar
4 min readMar 26, 2020
Image: Birds fly around prayer flags over a blue sky near the domed roof of a Buddhist stupa in Kathmandu, Nepal. Photo by Jacci Pillar.

I’ve been inspired by the #kindnesspandemic but I think we also need a #curiositypandemic to help us get through.

During uncertain times of this scale, human behaviour escalates in both positive and negative ways. I’m a list person. I’ve found through tough times lists are helpful, particularly in times of crisis, but I felt I needed to be more creative with my lists — and in particular foster curiosity instead of fear.

Humanity hasn’t seen something of this nature and size for 100+ years. I’m currently writing this in the middle of being very ill. It’s taken a lot longer than usual to draft because of that.

In my lifetime I’ve faced off with medical trauma and the very real possibility I might die a few times now. I’ve become somewhat expert in neurobiology since a traumatic brain injury and an autism diagnosis. But this was because I choose to foster curiosity to quell fears.

In recent times the climate of fear and misinformation has made things worse, not better. I’ve encouraged to seek information and not just consume the nearest meme or video without question. But to do this we need to reestablish our curiosity and replace our fear with curiosity.

I’ve always resisted the idea of a bucket list because people use buckets lists as though the only important time to do things that you dream of — is just before death. I’ve always felt we should honour our lives throughout them and experience the world as fully as we can throughout, not leave it until the end. Because the end is unpredictable, but the choice to live a fulfilled life of curiousity doesn’t have to be unpredictable, we can choose.

When I pursued a career in remote anthropology with the challenges I had — everywhere I went I had a note with me. It said:

“Live a life fulfilled, not imagined”.

It was stuck on computers, written on post its in my wallet, paint penned inside my backpack.

I have posted before about the “ f’k it list “ of things you should aspire to do anyway — because they are worth doing.

Recent events, or the C word I don’t want to mention has prompted me to think of new lists. Not to do lists, goal lists or shopping lists (although these are present).

It’s a curiosity list.

Yesterday was a struggle and I found myself thinking I had so much more to do and experience in the world and writing a list of things I was curious about exploring.

More importantly this was a list of things I am curious about that I WILL commit to exploring in the coming years.

The thing we need most at the moment is hope.

To create my curiosity list I asked of myself three questions about experiences I can be curious about (and created lists under them) regardless of where I am:

  1. What ideas and experiences am I curious about and what new knowledge can I seek?
  2. How can I share what I learn from my curiosity journey and how can I encourage those that are curious about that journey too?
  3. How can I ensure that my curiosity does not hurt anyone, that the journey is kind, fulfilling and hope filled?

We have the internet and we have more access to communities of knowledge than ever before. Others will be limited in that capacity, so question two should include a way that you can share things that don’t consume bandwidth, blog posts, images or where still possible, regular mail and mail outs. It may just be a phone call where a topic of shared curiosity is focussed on, rather than fixating on events.

In isolation, in lockdown, let’s get curious. The focus is on what we can do, learn and experience, right now, to start moving our thinking towards hope and curiosity is the vehicle.

Let’s take this time to bloom with curiosity, not fear.

Let’s move into the future holding onto to curiosity as a form of hope.

Regardless of what is on the other side, it is curiosity that has allowed us to invent and adapt and feel like we can take back some control when things are out of control.

Love to all. Please stay safe. Please take care of each other. Please replace fear with kindness and curiosity.

Originally published at http://jaccipillar.com on March 26, 2020.

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Jacci Pillar

Gin and Titters, disability/queer focussed comedy production was started by anthropologist and sometimes comedian Jacci Pillar in 2016.