What's more important, being passionate or being curious? | Hacker News Reader

What's more important, being passionate or being curious?

tinkeredthinking.com

25 pointsapson17 comments

I feel like this piece begins with a similar thesis to the Cal Newport book So Good They Can't Ignore You - namely that the ideals and goals around finding your "passion" or "doing what you love" are either setting you up for dissatisfaction ("I don't love what I do, therefore I am a failure") or disappointment ("my passion is writing but I became a software engineer instead of a novelist and now I am unfulfilled").

His solution to this was to pick any trade or skill and to explore it via mastery. Deliberate practice and, as with this piece, curiosity to "find" the bits of it that you are good at and enjoy, then focus on those aspects to get enough skill that people will pay you money for that skill. That isn't "passion" in the sense that most will think of when "following your dream" but you end up with a core trade and skillset that you are good at, you enjoy and differentiates you from everyone else in the market (or puts you in a small enough resource pool that you're always in demand).

I feel like this article touches on that to some extent, but opens up similar blind spots to a "passion" oriented mindset. Instead of "what if I'm not passionate about anything?" you have "what if I'm not curious about anything?". Both require an unwritten first step of discovering your passion or curiosity. Both don't have a coherent roadmap or end goals, so while one person may find following curiosity to be a better path (as they're able to untangle a thread or find a new one when a line of curiosity has been satisfied) another may find better success by using their "passion" as a guiding star.

Fun to think about anyway, but it's definitely true that both philosophies hide or downplay the amount of work required to turn your passion or your curiosity into a paying job.

Does it work like this:

The better you get at things, the more curiosity, passion, motivation, creativity and ideas follow.

Some things might be more attractive on the surface than others? They might be more _fascinating_ so there is an initial drive to explore.

So I don’t know if there are general rules like this. For me it’s tied to making things, mostly mistakes, and getting confidence through learning. This has an exponential effect on the rest.

Also, it can eventually become a problem to have a job that is your passion, because then what is your hobby? I always like to be working because it is truly fun. It can feel a bit unhealthy. But, tbh, I’d rather have it this way. I think it is just the paradox of success—more fun to pursue than to have. Typical human nature, if we are unhappy actually getting what we deeply desire!

I think that mastering any random skill can be fun, and can help with expanding the horizons, but it's a waste of time to do it just because you can get paid for it. Time is not money, time is infinitely more valuable than money, and trading it away in order to spend that time building someone else's dream is a terrible bargain.

Everyone has something that they can do better than anyone else, and give something to the world that no one else can, and that's the best direction to put most of one's effort into.

In a healthy society, it might be prudent to factor money into it as well, I've found it leading me down all kinds of wrong and fucked up roads, where I was making "good money" and was "good at my job" but felt miserable as fuck all the time.

I find thought pieces like these frustrating since it always devolves into a debate of definitions. For example, isn’t a passionate person curious?

My thoughts as well, passion and curiosity are closely related.

Here is an alternative way of thinking about passion and curiosity.

https://prsuit.com/find-your-passion-follow-your-curiosity/

Curiosity without passion ("suffering") will just lead to very superficial knowledge.

Every worthwhile thing you do in life, while it may have initially started as curiosity, will reach a point where there will be some measure of suffering involved for you to progress.

Are you curious about math. At some point, you will have to grind through and work out math problems and proofs, and it won't always feel like fun.

Are you curious about programming. At some point, you will have to figure out how to debug hard programs, and deal with language quirks, or deal with hard to understand legacy code.

Do you want to fly an airplane? There will be FAA physicals and certification and hours and hours of flight time.

Do you want to be a doctor? There will be medical school and tests and cadavers and long hours of study and work.

Want to be a sports star? There will be hours at the gym, and hours watching game tape, and being careful what you eat.

It seems that nothing worthwhile in life comes without some "suffering".

That is where the passion comes in. You will have to want to do that thing enough that you are willing to do things you would rather not do or spend time you would rather be doing something else.

I disagree. Passion is often the enemy of professionalism. Passion leads to superficial knowledge in that passion is narrow and doesn't encompass any field in its entirety.

Duty gets you through, it's the limits of passion that you yourself describe.

I just read something last night that stated "passion without competence is useless." We all hear about pursuing your passions, but we also all probably know at least one person passionate about something they're no good at (someone who can't carry a tune with a passion for singing, for example).

This is a bit of a false dichotomy.

One can be both passionate and curious at the same time.

Sure, depending on the context, one might take preference - but sweeping generalisations like the one implied by this clickbaity title's question don't really add value.

This is a rather limited viewpoint which overlooks a lot of other components and factors, such as natural predispositions, what a person enjoys doing, AND what benefits others.

I think the "Ikigai" diagram tells a lot here.

https://www.performanceexcellencenetwork.org/pensights/wp-co...

And in case that link breaks, this google search for similar.

https://www.google.com/search?q=ikigai+diagram

I personally believe in leaving the money component out of it, given what and how our society incentivizes financially. Other than that, I think it's a great philosophy.

> Forget passion.

Find curiosity.

Whoa. Not so fast buddy :)

I'd argue (read: at the bar banter) that passion - done properly - is a form of curiosity. Being driven to find what's ahead. The energy and focus to push up and over the hill to see what's on the other side. Etc. Passion is also a relative of love. Life without love? I think not.

That said, passion for passion's sake? Agreed. A false god. At that point, go with purpose. What is your purpose? Passion is like happiness, it's fleeting and erratic. Purpose is more North Star-esque.

I do agree, curiosity is the superior force. It's more beneficial. But that doesn't make passion unnecessary or obsolobsolete.

In artificial intelligence there is a well known dilemma that IMO is reflected in the human experience. The dilemma is between exploration (being curious) and exploitation (being passoniate). This article is basically saying "exploration is better than exploitation". Of course, it is far from being that simple. Finding the optimal balance between exploit/explore is not trivial at all.

Passionate helps you keep going. Curious teaches you thinks you would not know otherwise. Complementary things in my opinion.

Why does it have to be two different buckets?

Asks the curious person . . .

curious why i like her so much

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