“…As long as this life unfolds through me, I will let curiosity guide me. Curiosity is who I am.” ~ O’Nell Agossa

O’Nell Agossa has a personal pact: curiosity is who he is.

His first book is part memoir, part allegorical road trip buddy story. A thoughtful, slightly trippy, poignant tale of self-discovery.

Curiosity & I: Let Curiosity Guide You is a novel about research and theory — but mostly it’s a conversation about how curiosity shows up in work and life between O’Nell’s protagonist and a shape-shifting, golden-eyed cat named Curiosity.

Here’s the beauty: everything changes… It’s not to say don’t enjoy when you’re high or don’t enjoy when you’re low, just appreciate and know that change is the constant. To change is to be. And to accept that, for me, is to be curious.

We talked about life as a curiosity experiment, checking in and pausing, the inevitability and gifts of change, curiosity as a compass, embracing our agency and avoiding curiosity imposters, not over-valuing outcomes, humility, defining success and failure for ourselves — and what he calls the seeds of curiosity: curiosity is honest, curiosity is active, and curiosity compounds.

Listen to Ep. #334: Curiosity & I, with O’Nell Agossa

O’Nell Agossa‘s first book is Curiosity & I: Let Curiosity Guide You. Find him on Substack.

If you enjoyed this dive into writing and memoir, you might enjoy these C2BC Classics: Identity & the Grace of Curiosity, with Annabelle Tometich; Getting to the Heart: Curiosity & Ghost Writing, with Laura Zigman; & Literary Agent Kayla Lightner is Looking for Fearless Curiosity.

Theme music by Sean Balick; “Discovery Harbor” by Cloud Harbor and “Skyway” by The Balloonist, via Blue Dot Sessions.

You can subscribe to Choose to Be Curious on Apple Podcastsand Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.