Curiosity leads us
to lands
we’ve never before seen,
to mountains
we’ve never before climbed,
and depths
we’ve never before descended.
It leads us
to ask
and to explore,
to seek
and to invent,
to challenge,
and dare,
and even,
to risk our lives.
It leads us
to wonder why the starling cloud moves with such precision,
to wonder what the world looks like from the vantage of a falcon,
to wonder how a face is formed,
to wonder why the neck of a giraffe is found on an insect,
to wonder how a spider transports a shell,
to wonder how many chilli peppers a person can consume,
to wonder what things hidden by day reveal themselves by night,
to wonder about the stories of a lost civilization,
to wonder if dinner can be caught even in a monsoon,
to wonder what ritual causes a lake to be emptied,
and to wonder if the worlds largest spider might make a tasty treat.
But asking
and wondering
will hardly suffice.
Curiosity is,
in the end,
all for naught
if it does not change us,
if it does not lead us
to move,
to act.
And so it does…
For it also leads us
to walk and hunt beneath the water,
to leap over bulls,
to make allies of eagles,
to steal lunch from lions,
to wade in icy lakes,
to forage in perilous crags,
to climb in trees and steal honey from bees,
to make a dwelling atop the rainforest,
to map, and re-map, the world,
to willingly enter into quicksand,
and to discover the difference between jewelry and death.
To these incredible places
and on these unfathomable quests
curiosity leads us.