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Thursday 21 April 2011

Curiosity killed the cat...

...were a band in the 1980s that are among the many crimes of Simon Cowell. In fact, just checking this and looking him up on Wikepedia I notice that his crimes against music are legion as well as a few other interesting points about how he first became successful (go look it up)

...equally the proverb dates back to the time of Ben Jonson although is generally attributed to Eugene O'Neil.

I haven't blogged for a while having been doing jury service. And one thing that a random cross section of society (for that is what a jury is supposed to be) gives you is a chance to reflect on the differences between people. I have also been gently percolating on some models of personality together with a few business books I've read recently (Drive, The Laws of Simplicity, Naked, Different) which seek to identify the quintessence of success.

With a brief nod to one of the best books I read last year, "The Black Swan" acknowledging the the very nature of this reflection may just be an urge on my part to make sense of randomness, the thing that makes people stand out in my eyes is curiosity.

People who are interested become interesting.

It almost doesn't matter what you are interested in, in fact the more diverse the better in my eyes. Curious people are more often on the front foot looking for things. They may make more mistakes because they stick their noses into things that they don't understand. But on the whole they are more fun, more challenging, more diverting, just "more" really.

So, be curious. I doubt it will kill you and you might learn something on the way