Curiosity is key

By nature I love to explore. I can remember being at school and encouraging my friends to join me in discovering exactly what was underneath the stage of the school hall. Waiting until no one was around, we carefully opened the trapdoor, and climbed into the dirt beneath with torches in hand, home-made shields on our knees and masks covering our mouths in case the dust was too severe. Despite the fact that dirt and dust was all that was there, the excitement of the exploration remains in my memory. 

Wandering down alleys and streets, watching people while soaking in the sights, sounds and smells, fills me with joy.  At heart I am a flaneur, a person who walks the city in order to experience it.  

This morning, instead of going on a walk to discover and photograph more skyscrapers in Downtown Dubai, I made my way by metro to visit the souqs in Deira. I have visited this area many times and love to wander up and down the various alleyways known as sikkas. 

As I made my way around the Grand Deira Souq I noticed a sign I had not seen before: Museum of the poet Al Oqaili. Following similar signs I came upon a small museum which still had much construction going on on the outside. I discovered afterwards that the Al Oqaili Museum has only been opened this month.

 

I was welcomed in and made my way around the restored home of the poet.

 Earlier as I wandered I had tweeted, 

Smells of spices as I wander through the souks. #mindfulness #flaneur

— Linda Hollier (@lindahollier) December 11, 2012

Now on the walls I found a poem written by Al Oqaili about Dubai containing these words:

“Its scent captivated me since I was a little boy.

For it I left all valuable things.”

As I explored the home of the man who had been both a store owner and a poet, and whose work is highly valued in Arabic literature, I had a sense that I was meant to find this place. The poet’s table, his displayed writings, the quiet atmosphere of the courtyard, the teak doors and the restored gypsum ornaments, invited me to reflect again on the creativity that not only lays at the heart of silence, but flourishes when curiosity abounds. 

Al Oqaili had travelled about before settling in Dubai so he must have been curious. 

Recently, Anthony Lawlor tweeted the following:

Curiosity is the guiding impulse of flaneurs. cc @lindahollier

— AnthonyLawlor (@AnthonyLawlor) December 1, 2012

Further tweets by him read as follows:

Curiosity comes from the root to care. To care about life is to be curious.

Simply being present to what is as it is = a great adventure

Curioser and Curiouser is the natural response to noticing what is actually happening. 

The last tweet reminded me of my blog called “Linda in Wonderland” and made me realize again how much we need to encourage the natural curiosity of small children instead of stifling it.  Melissa Davis, the mother of George Davis, a fellow flaneur (both in the here and in the here2here of cyberspace), writes in an update to Mindfulness and Flanerie: 

Years ago I read a NYTimes op ed that shared the unscientific findings of a city dweller observing adults accompanying small children around a neighborhood in Manhattan. She reported that the majority of them pushed strollers which ensured timely arrivals wherever the adult was headed. She contrasted them with the handful of adults who walked – meandered – alongside their youngsters, stopping to examine every interesting flower or bit of flotsam along the way. She pointed out that there was nothing more important for a child that age to do than poke along – and through – every curiosity.

Right now we need to foster a generation that will ask questions, search for answers and create solutions.  Unfortunately most of our current school systems merely offer education - the process of receiving or giving systematic instruction, and fail to encourage true learning. 

In a recent Huffington post interview entitled “Mindfulness in the Modern World”, Jon Kabat-Zinn states:

All the interesting stuff is found on the edge between knowing and not knowing.

NASA’s Curiosity rover has landed on Mars. Thirty-five years and 11 billion miles later, Voyager 1 has finally reached the edge of the solar system and will next enter a magnetic highway .

The realms of cyberspace appear to be limitless, and there too we will need to explore with care and curiosity. So fellow cyberflaneurs, not only do we need to listen deeply but our ascent needs to be noted for having at its heart, a deep sense of curiosity.