Curiosity as Method
Mandatory training, "Anti-Money-Laundering I". It sits in the calendar like a grey smudge across the working week. Enthusiasm hovers around nil. I wait the time out, click my way stoically through the multiple-choice, and three days later I've forgotten most of it. So far, so pointless.
And then there are the other occasions. It's a Tuesday evening. I want quiet, I'd honestly rather be in bed. But the VLAN routing on my UniFi Dream Machine is playing up. Or it's a Sunday night and the new batch of mustard still needs adjusting.
All at once I'm wide awake. I dig through forums, argue with my AI about the biochemistry of cold-grinding mustard seed, and redesign the entire home network in my head. Hours later the problem is solved. And the knowledge stays put. For a long time. Sometimes for good.
The difference between the dreary training and my late-night problem-solving isn't a question of discipline. It's plain neurobiology. The sheer force of curiosity.
The neurobiology behind it
Look closely and curiosity isn't a vague feeling but a measurable state. When we hit an information gap, when we notice we don't know something and badly want to, the reward system fires. The brain releases dopamine. It doesn't only feel good; it works like a turbo on the hippocampus, where long-term memory lives. We learn faster, keep more, and hold on even to the odd detail off to the side.
Curiosity comes from the gap between what we know and what we want to know. That gap feels like a small deprivation. Almost a mental itch.
The psychologist George Loewenstein called this the Information Gap Theory. We learn to make the itching stop.
The problem with corporate learning
Most companies serve up input nobody ordered. We pelt people with ready-made answers while they aren't itching for anything yet. The result is overload, noise, and, frankly, a good deal of frustration on all sides.
So the question, seen through the training lens, isn't how do we make the next course a bit more colourful. It's this: how do we set off the itch on purpose? How do we turn curiosity from an accident into a method?
How is it where you are? Still chasing certificates, or already solving real problems?