The luck of having a full room

I’ve always had the feeling that I’m curious about too many things. And I’m not talking about an organized curiosity, but the kind that sometimes overwhelms you because it throws a thousand questions at all at once.

This sometimes leads me down complicated paths because, as frustrating as it may be, I know I can’t understand everything. It happens to me with physics, for example: coming from a social sciences background, I’m incredibly curious to understand why time passes differently on other planets. People explain it to me, I read about it, I look it up... and yet, I still struggle to process it. It’s exhausting to feel like your head is full of half-baked concepts and questions you’re not even sure have answers.

Living with this mental archive of disconnected data and random curiosities can be overwhelming. But gradually, working in this creative world, I’ve realized that maybe it’s not a "technical glitch" in my head, but something shared by many of us in this field.

Sometimes we force ourselves to learn things or fill our minds just so they can "serve" us at work. But I believe the true pleasure lies in nurturing the mind innately, without thinking about utility; learning or asking for the mere sake of feeling full. Having that "warehouse" of things you don't know if you'll ever use.

Virginia Woolf and the privilege of being able to ask.

Virginia Woolf

Recently, I was reading Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One's Own. She spoke about the importance of having a physical and mental space to be able to create, and how so many women have been deprived of it for centuries. Reading her made me reflect on the luck of being able to "satisfy" these curiosities; the luck of being able to ask, to access, and to have the space to reflect. Because, even if it’s frustrating not to understand everything, it would be much more so to not even be able to try.

Although I’ve sometimes wondered why my mind works this way, I’m realizing more and more that everything doesn't have to be tidy. That, sometimes, the virtue isn't in knowing how to classify every concept but in having the luck and the opportunity to be interested in them. In the end, what matters is the work of understanding, observing, and questioning; not so much the result you get, but the pleasure of keeping that room always full.

Perhaps curiosity and creativity are much more closely related than we think. It’s not about having all the answers, but about keeping the door open to new questions. Working in creative environments has taught me that it’s okay not to know everything; what really matters is never losing the drive to ask.