ChatGPT once diagnosed me with chronic curiosity. I’ve been thinking about that diagnosis ever since, so I wanted to sit with it a little longer.
Typically, the word “chronic” comes with a bad connotation. All it really means is that something is going to be with you forever but won’t shorten your life. If anything, chronic curiosity might extend mine; it means my brain is always working harder than baseline. Maybe it’ll even lower my risk of dementia down the road. I don’t have a problem with that trade-off.
I don’t know how or why I developed this particular chronic condition, but I don’t think I could live without it. It’s what makes me who I am. It’s what pushes me to learn and grow and change.
School can be hard, but more often, I find myself genuinely excited by it. I go to work every day and run lab experiments, but I also get to just sit at my desk and read every single day. I think about what other people do at work, wondering how much new information I’m taking in compared to them, and it fascinates me. I know not everyone envies that, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But understanding how our bodies work, how our minds work, even how the universe works, it’s all pretty amazing to me.
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We may never know how or why the universe began, or whether there’s anything bigger than it. We may never uncover the full secrets of human consciousness. But it sure is fascinating trying. I’d rather spend an hour every weekend with physicists discussing the origins of the universe, or with archaeologists and evolutionary biologists learning about the latest discoveries on human origins, than spend that hour listening to a weekly sermon. This isn’t a knock on how other people find meaning; it’s just where mine comes from. We know elementary particles exist because we use them to diagnose cancer. But there’s still so much we don’t know, and like a lot of people, I can’t stop wondering what else there is to learn.
I believe people can change, but only through acquiring new knowledge and new experiences. Without either of those, it’s hard to grow; you just keep living the same version of yourself. Someone once said, “A big part of who I am is who I am not anymore.” I think about that line often. Every year of learning has made me a little less the person I was the year before and a little less who I was five years ago, ten years ago, twenty years ago. Unfortunately, I’ve spent more of my life living as who I was expected to be than as who I actually am, and that makes me a little sad. But I look forward to whoever I’m still becoming and to living more of my life as my true self.
The thing that’s made all of this possible is the chronic curiosity. It’s led me to a career not of medicine, and not even really of science, but of lifelong learning. I’ve been a student for most of my life. I don’t think that will ever change, and honestly, that makes me happy.
Jack Tiller is a medical student.
