“There’s a certain risk aversion that happens. So, how do we create more of a culture of risk-taking that enables us to pursue our curiosity more?” ~ Stephanie Almeida Nevin

How often do you look up a word just to be sure it actually means what you think it means?

I was checking “trammel” recently for this very reason.

I’d come across a marvelous line about “untrammeled curiosity” in efforts to cultivate habits of thought and expression, as undertaken at Yale’s Center for Civic Thought.

The Center is dedicated to encouraging thoughtful public discourse and civically responsible intellectual life. It hosts small conversations designed to help participants practice disagreement, curiosity, and thinking without the pressure to perform.

…so I was happily primed for “curiosity”…

But this idea of trammeled thinking — being captive in a loop of our own making — stuck with me, a vivid image of what happens when we swim along mindlessly, maybe going along with the crowd, neither heeding nor challenging where the waters are taking us.

Stephanie Almeida Nevin and I explored some of the many curiosity practices embedded in the Center’s work.

Curiosity is, fundamentally, this organic desire that we have to exercise our innate capacities for reason and creativity. And if we’re not following it, then we’re not getting to exercise that desire — and we risk moving through the world in a more thoughtless way.

We talked about creating spaces where it’s okay to not know what we think, being in questions together, the risks of not risk-taking in conversation, cultivating curiosity ecosystems and disciplines that support civic discourse, actually hearing how our ideas are landing and being discussed by others, making space for internal dialogue, and solitude as a rich and rewarding curiosity practice.

Listen to Ep. #339: Untrammeled Curiosity & Civic Thought, with Stephanie Almeida Nevin

Stephanie Almeida Nevin is a Lecturer in Political Science and Executive Director of the Yale Center for Civic Thought.

What word has captured your imagination recently? How has that shaped how you think about the world around you?

Civic (and civil) dialogue comes up a lot here. If you’re hungry for more, try these C2BC Classics: Civity: Engaging Others with Respect, Empathy & Curiosity, with Malka Ranjana Kopell & Palma Joy Strand; Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times, with Monicá Guzmán; Resolved: Curiosity Is Good for Debate, with David Trigaux; How Curiosity Can Change Your Life & Transform the World, with Scott Shigeoka & How to Change the World.

Theme music by Sean Balick; “Tuck and Point” by Onesuch Village, via Blue Dot Sessions.

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