Curiosity: The Ultimate Intelligence

It’s amazing how smart we are. We have no lack of opinions about things we think we know much or little about. We might bristle at someone even implying that what we know is an opinion instead of an unquestionable truth.

We can read one article, see one social media post, or watch one video on just about anything and speak about it with impressive authority. If we get enough people who think they are as smart as we are, we can become an “influencer” du jour, meaning we have convinced people they are as smart as we aren’t.

We can entertain ourselves and each other for hours, days, careers, and lifetimes bantering back and forth about how much we know. It only gets annoying or tense when one of us discovers others aren’t as smart as they think they are. This is simply a diagnosis of unconscious ignorance — being wrong and not even knowing it.

We become and stay friends with people who are as smart as we are, which is to say, think they know all the amazing things we think we know. We exile the disloyal who dare differ from we know. We will even sacrifice relationships on the altar of being right.

Depending on how we were raised, we might even dehumanize others who aren’t as smart as we are, justifying our desire to see them punished for this unforgivable sin.

We might return some from exile back to the land of the welcome if they prove themselves to be once again smart enough to see how smart we actually are, and have been for a very long time, thank you.

We can spend time listening to political, religious, academic, and business leaders, believing they are geniuses simply on the basis that if we believe what they believe, we are as smart as they are, or at least that they are as smart as we are.

There seem to be no limits to how smart we could be. Just as we think we couldn’t possibly any smarter, against the odds, we become even smarter. We are amazing that way.

There is however an underbelly to our brilliance. Believing we know everything to be known about anything we have an opinion about can lead to us to do terrible things to others and ourselves — sometimes knowing it and often not even realizing it because our brilliance makes us unconscious of our limitations.

We would have to be curious to pull that off. Because curiosity is a clear admission of our not knowing, curious is the enemy of smart, so that’s a non-starter for the smart crowd.

As it turns out, where the humility of curiosity gives us unlimited access to discovery, the hubris of thinking we know everything limits us in ways we don’t even know.

Of course, we didn’t invent smart. Our developing brains were wired with the belief that not knowing was cause for shame and knowing was cause for praise. In the meantime, we learned every single new ability through curiosity — wondering, exploring, and experimenting. And this would continue for the arc of our life.

Smart starts early. With the panache of an imitative chimp, a two-year-old who knows practically nothing can issue edicts to anyone within bullying distance simply based on having an opinion.

Fortunately, there is one way out. It’s living from curiosity, living from our questions rather than opinions.

It’s living an abundant and engaging life of always wondering, exploring, and learning. In all of our relationships, projects, challenges, opportunities, and pursuits. This leads to a life where we fear neither death, nor life.

Curiosity is why we solve problems together, make miracles happen together, and create new futures together. Curiosity is why any new breakthroughs in any domain ever happened. It is why human beings have been and continue to be capable of extraordinary beauty, truth, and grace.

It’s loving our questions, learning to get better at growing questions, and having a bias for answering our questions with actions rather than opinions. If we actually want to be smart. That’s smart.

Curiosity is the ultimate intelligence. That’s why flawless planning with its rigorous basis as question-based works quickly and often. That’s why questions make it possible for all transformation to be linguistic.

That’s why the curious will inherit the earth.

Excerpt from Flawless Planning: The art and science of planning anything. 2024 Jack Ricchiuto | FlawlessPlanning.org