Category: 3 – SHELF it (All Categories are 1 – Read ASAP!, 2 – BUY it!, 3 – SHELF it, 4 – SOMEDAY it)
Comments: Brian Grazer is a successful Hollywood producer whose work touched all of us through works like “A Beautiful Mind” and “24.” He focuses this autobiography on one trait that he’s worked on developing over the course of his life – curiosity. And his method of exercising curiosity was to make it a point to engage in “curiosity conversations” with luminaries from various fields which, in turn, influenced the movies and shows he made. The book occasionally tips to “here’s who I met and what they really are behind the scenes” – but is a nice read overall.
Insights that resonated:
My favorite insight from the book was about the bias against curiosity in culture. People in power have always found curiosity threatening. The Adam and Eve parable is the oldest example – the moral being that curiosity leads to suffering.
Curiosity also killed the cat.
Even in everyday language, when we describe something as “curious,” we mean it’s an oddity. A little weird. Other than normal.
It makes sense when you think about it. Curiosity asks why things are the way they are. It doesn’t take things for granted. That’s challenging to any established order.
Marler's Observatory 