LIFE-SAVING IDEAS (3/5)

"WHAT IF WE LIVED IN THE QUESTION MARK?"

Curiosity has become a choice. A choice in a world feeding us with information, distraction, movies, series, a constant flow of pieces of news, each repeated to saturation, until next piece of news takes over. It's easy to believe, that keeping your attention and mind open to this flow makes you smarter, but you know, that it just fills your time and leaves you more and more passive, and maybe content for a while. Most of all, it kills curiosity, the active search for answers to an active questioning. Isn't it absolutely essential today? When media and social networks are competing for your mind and time with more and more sophisticated tools to lead you to believe or consume? An essential tool to keep your curiosity alive is to search for independent media and journalism and even more so, take time to read non-fiction as well. Since I launched this blog, I have subscribed to The Atlantic, Foreign Policy, Le Grand Continent, G Zero Media to complete what I already followed in Le Monde, Dagens Industri and different Substack blogs. I get daily news from the New York Times and Bloomberg as well. It is far too much, and I am now in the process of cutting dow sources, which is not easy. The exercise, anyway for me, is to try to find and read one piece of analysis a day, reason for which I need a broader choice. I am lucky to have more time now, and that helps curiosity. Anyhow, curiosity is like a vegetable garden, it needs to be cultivated or it dries out and dies. Let's keep it up! This is the subject of the third idea I chose, published in the third part of Nicolas Bordas' book described below.

Part 3: Repairing the Thread of Generations

Sometimes the thread stretches. Or it breaks. Between ages, eras, and lived experiences. Between those who come, those who are here, and those who depart. This thread is made of memory, attentiveness, and passed-down gestures. It weaves the connections between the living, the dead, and those yet to be born. When it frays, societies stagnate. When it flows, they breathe more freely.

Our era seems obsessed with the present. Eager to enjoy. Eager to forget. It celebrates youth while infantilizing adults. It marginalizes the elderly while fearing aging. It talks about passing things on without taking the time to do so.

But what becomes of a civilization that no longer gives itself the time to educate, to learn, to write, to connect? That wants neither to inherit nor to bequeath?

This is not about returning to a fantasized golden age. Nor is it about sanctifying tradition. But rather about rediscovering a form of temporal hospitality: welcoming childhood without reducing it to a mere stage to be traversed. Listening to old age without categorizing it. Thinking of oneself as a link, fragile yet essential, in a chain of care, knowledge, and symbols.

This third part proposes to open paths to healing. It speaks of ancestors and children, of slowness and attentiveness, of learning and curiosity. For curiosity perhaps touches the very core, that which best connects generations: the desire to understand the world without ever ceasing to question it. It interrogates cultural habits, urban policies, and the rhythms of existence. It seeks what, in our most everyday actions, can recreate links between generations.

Repairing the thread between generations is not just a matter of education or transmission. It is an act of civilization. A refusal to sever ties. A way of inhabiting time differently: no longer as an escape, but as a continuity.

Perhaps this is what true progress is today: no longer thinking about the world for ourselves alone, but for those who will come after.

"WHAT IF WE LIVED IN THE QUESTION MARK?"

"To inhabit a question mark is to refuse to live in certainties. It is to make curiosity a way of being in the world."

If you're reading these words, it's because you're curious. And if you're curious, this chapter is dedicated to you. Its deliberately enigmatic title is a nod to Jean-Pierre Martin's erudite and inspiring essay, * Curiosity – A Reason for Living* , one of those rare books that illuminate existence and give it even more zest. Long relegated to the bottom of my ever-growing pile of to-read books, this essay finally presented itself to me as a belated necessity. I finally opened it… and I devoured it. Jean-Pierre Martin evokes curiosity not as a mere character trait, but as a vital force, an essential breath of free thought. Passionate about reading and writing, he believes he himself was saved from dogmatism by his curiosity. "Opening a book," he writes, "is a bit like opening a drawer that holds secrets." His work is a real cabinet of curiosities, of great literary and philosophical richness, where the great thinkers of history intersect with the most contemporary questions. The book's central thesis is crystal clear: curiosity is neither a luxury nor a pastime. It is a reason for living. It makes us more human, more free, more open to the complexity of reality. It is an antidote to confinement, narrow certainties, and ready-made narratives. To inhabit the question mark is to choose an intelligence that is always in motion, a living thought, a gaze that is never satiated. In a world where so much discourse claims to close the debate before it even begins, this stance stands as an act of resistance. It requires us to question our beliefs, our preferences, our mental routines. And perhaps that is what makes it so valuable.

THE SPIRIT OF CURIOSITY

Curiosity is not the indiscreet or unhealthy passion it has so often been caricatured as. It is an essential virtue, a movement of the soul that rebels against indifference. Jean-Pierre Martin describes it as "a breath of fresh air that allows us to breathe, in all fields of knowledge, with the intellect, but also in all realms of reality, with the senses." Far from being a simple thirst for knowledge, it is a way of caring for the world, a way of inhabiting our human condition with subtlety and sensitivity. Its Latin etymology, curiositas , derived from cura ("care"), bears witness to this: to be curious is to care for what we do not yet know, to focus our attention on what might escape us. It is a form of active attention, of inner availability, a drive toward what lies beyond the immediate horizon of our experience. This dynamic toward the unknown is at the very foundation of philosophy. Aristotle, in the opening lines of the Metaphysics , states that "all men by nature desire to know." Plato, for his part, made wonder ( thaumazein ) the starting point of all thought. Without wonder, without unease, without curiosity, there is no quest for truth. Closer to our time, Einstein himself said: "I have no special talents, I am just passionately curious," recognizing that science, like any human endeavor of knowledge, is first and foremost an adventure of observation. This vision of curiosity as a virtue spans the centuries, from Leonardo da Vinci to Montaigne, from Rousseau to Camus, from Beauvoir to Ken Robinson. It lies at the heart of the greatest intellectual and artistic achievements. To be curious is to desire to understand, without claiming to master everything. It means accepting to be moved, to step outside oneself, to question assumptions. It means recognizing that truth is never given once and for all, that it is sought, constructed, and experienced. This explains why modern education is giving increasing importance to this quality: awakening curiosity in children allows them to open themselves to the world, to think for themselves, to adapt to uncertainty, and to preserve their capacity for wonder. Ken Robinson, an international expert in pedagogy and creativity, forcefully reminded us that traditional school systems, by valuing conformity, risk stifling students' natural curiosity. Conversely, approaches based on inquiry, experimentation, and projects seek to nurture this desire to know and transform it into a driving force for growth. For curiosity, when cultivated, becomes the catalyst for intellectual autonomy, critical freedom, and inventiveness. An education in curiosity is therefore an education in life. An education in truth.

REFUSE INCURIOSITY

However, while curiosity can be cultivated, it can also be inhibited, diminished, redirected, or even perverted. And these are precisely the risks that Jean-Pierre Martin lucidly identifies. For unlike curiosity, incuriosity is a form of willful blindness, a capitulation of the mind. It compels us to remain trapped in our cognitive bubbles, to avoid questioning our prejudices, and to reject complexity. It fuels intellectual laziness, superficial judgments, and emotional outbursts. It makes us manipulable, vulnerable to simplistic narratives and collective emotions. This contemporary incuriosity takes many forms: constant channel zapping, dependence on algorithms, and the overconsumption of content without any effort at prioritization or analysis. It manifests itself in the growing difficulty of maintaining attention for extended periods, reading demanding texts, and accepting the discomfort of anything that contradicts our beliefs. This also translates into a kind of disinterest in the past, in history, in nuances, in favor of the instantaneous, the sensational, the viral. As Martin notes, "Our curiosities are under influence." And this influence is increasingly commercial, emotional, and algorithmic. Certainly, there is an overabundance of information in our societies. But this overabundance does not necessarily create knowledge. On the contrary, it can overwhelm our capacity for discernment, reinforcing a false impression of immediate knowledge, which discourages in-depth research. This is what Jean-Pierre Martin calls "the pathology of perverse curiosity," fueled by the logic of conspiracy theories, disinformation, and negative emotions. A curiosity without demands, which does not seek to understand but to confirm. A curiosity that discovers nothing but is happy to repeat. Faced with this, we must relearn the patience of the archaeologist. The taste for detail. The sense of digression. The love of counterpoint. Martin insists: incuriosity is not simply negligence, it is a disease of the mind. It pervades "every individual chained to their beliefs, their thought patterns, their family conditioning, their group certainties, their preferred reading material and tastes, and underlies all captive and sectarian thought." This is why incuriosity does not only threaten individual intelligence. It jeopardizes our collective capacity to think together, to deliberate, to create something shared.

BECOME CURIOUS

Faced with these risks, only one path seems possible: cultivating curiosity as a way of being, a discipline of attention, an art of questioning. To inhabit the question mark is not to live in indecision or relativism. It is to adopt a posture of availability, openness, and vigilance. It is to reject the reassuring closure of dogma and prefer the fertile uncertainty of research. It is to want to understand without confining, to explore without dominating, to learn without possessing. In this sense, curiosity is a school of inner freedom. Paradoxically, it is also a fidelity. A fidelity to our unfinished humanity. For we are never entirely what we believe ourselves to be. Curiosity reminds us that we are beings in the process of becoming, called to grow, to change, to reinvent ourselves. It makes every moment an opportunity for discovery, every encounter a springboard to the unknown. It is what pulls us out of habit and makes us truly alive. As Jean-Pierre Martin writes, “we will only find answers if we never give up on asking good questions.” To inhabit the question mark, then, is to adopt an ethic of surprise, exploration, and movement. It is to take the risk of not knowing, the risk of being wrong, the risk of learning. It is to constantly open drawers full of secrets, forgotten books, and detours. It is to invent a form of modest and joyful wisdom, both serious and playful. It is to prefer the trembling light of wonder to the rigid shadow of certainty. Perhaps it is also to consider curiosity as one of our greatest reasons for living?

"I don't have any particular talent. I 'm just passionately curious."

ALBERT EINSTEIN