Curiosity, Trust & Real Estate

“If you streamline the beginning, and you don’t really know what’s motivating someone, or what’s important to them, or what’s going on in their life, you could find it all goes south … because there was something you didn’t get at.” ~ Christine Hopkins

From my home to yours in this holiday season, a conversation about curiosity, trust — and real estate. Realtor Christine Hopkins shares her insights on curiosity’s role in building trust at one of life’s most intimate transactions: buying a home.

Listen to Choose to be Curious #101: Curiosity, Trust & Homebuying, with Realtor Christine Hopkins.

Christine has sponsored Choose to be Curious for most of my 101 episodes. I appreciate her support more than I can say. Find NoVa House Hunter on Facebook.  

That trust equation I mentioned? You can find more here.

Our theme music is by Sean Balick . Check out Sean’s new album “From the Pines”.  “Home Home At Last” by Warmbody, via  Blue Dot Sessions.

You can subscribe to Choose to be Curious on Apple Podcasts/ iTunes and Stitcher.

Check out the Choose to be Curious shop! All purchases support Arlington Independent Media. Please also consider making a donation at wera.fm. Thanks!

Everyday Curiosity

“When you’re experiencing a state of curiosity, or other positive kinds of emotions, you tend to broaden out into the world.” ~ David Lydon-Staley

Listen to Choose to be Curious #100: Everyday Curiosity, with David Lydon-Staley.

How does one celebrate 100 conversations about how curiosity shows up in work and life? By exploring curiosity in its most everyday expressions. By celebrating the recognition this show has received: serious study and as a Best of Arlington Edit Pick.

A celebration, indeed.

Thank you for joining me on this curiosity adventure!

Check out David Lydon-Staley’s fascinating work, here. 

I’m so honored to have been selected Arlington Magazine, Best of Arlington, Editor Pick: Best Local Podcast. Be sure to check out the other winners and support those local businesses!

A special thanks to realtor Christine Hopkins, who has sponsored Choose to be Curious for most of these 100 episodes. Find Christine on Facebook.  

Thanks to Sean Balick for our theme music. Check out Sean’s new album “From the Pines”. “Silk and Silver” by Azalai via  Blue Dot Sessions.

You can subscribe to Choose to be Curious on Apple Podcasts/ iTunes and Stitcher.

Check out the Choose to be Curious shop! All purchases support Arlington Independent Media. Please also consider making a donation at wera.fm. Thanks!

 

Arlington Magazine Best of Arlington, Editor Pick: Local Podcast!

I am thrilled and honored to have been selected as an Arlington Magazine Best of Arlington, Editor Pick: Local Podcast. 

“Hosted by Lynn Borton, a former executive at the National Alliance on Mental Illness, Choose to be Curious on Arlington’s WERA 96.7 FM explores a wide range of intriguing issues. And when we say “range,” we mean it. In 2019, for example, Borton chatted with show guests about equity in public policy; Leonardo da Vinci and the benefits of distraction; and the effects of anthropogenic forces on the environment. On her website, Borton writes: ‘I learned to ask, not to assume; to empathize, not judge; to appreciate the importance of worldview and life experiences that were very different from my own.'” ~ Eliza Berkon

You, too, could be making your own media. Check out the great classes at Arlington Independent Media — and listen to WERA 96.7 FM (streaming at wera.fm) for lots of other terrific local programs!

You can subscribe to Choose to be Curious on Apple Podcasts/ iTunes and Stitcher.

Check out the Choose to be Curious shop! Any purchase supports Arlington Independent Media. Please also consider making a donation at wera.fm. Thanks!

 

Censorship: Curiosity Curtailed

“Censorship itself draws people to the information. And when you know you can’t know something, then you really want to know it.”  ~ Molly E. Roberts

What happens with curiosity in the face of real denial, like hard-core information censorship? And what influence – if any – have new media and internet-based information-sharing channels had on governments’ censorship capabilities? How susceptible are we?

Should we be worried?

Molly is a professor of political science at University of California, San Diego. Her research interests lie in the intersection of political methodology and the politics of information — with a specific focus on methods of automated content analysis and the politics of censorship in China.

Listen to Choose to be Curious #95: Censorship: Curiosity Curtailed, with Molly E. Roberts

Learn more about Molly E. Robert’s work here. 

I found these articles (1, 2) from Washington Post’s “Monkey Cage” series (connecting political scientists and the political conversation) helpful and fascinating. 

Theme music by Sean Balick.  Check out Sean’s new album “From the Pines”. “Hammer and Damper” by Blue Nocturnal, by way of Blue Dot Sessions.

You can subscribe to Choose to be Curious on Apple Podcasts/ iTunes and Stitcher.

Check out the Choose to be Curious shop!*

*Any purchase from the Choose to be Curious shop supports Arlington Independent Media. Please also consider making a donation at wera.fm. Thanks!

Neurodiverse Curiosity: what if we assume everyone is equally curious?

“And so when it came to writing this curiosity paper, I thought: how would we do it? How would we take something that we barely understood in the normative sense, and study it for all of those other kids who don’t generally have a voice and don’t generally get studied?” ~ Kristy Johnson

MIT Media Lab Fellow Kristy Johnson believes we’re thinking about curiosity all wrong — and leaving out a huge swath of the human experience while we’re at it. She offers an exciting alternative: define curiosity as the ways in which an individual excels in exploring — and then go from there.

Listen to Choose to be Curious #99: Neurodiverse Curiosity, with Kristy Johnson.

What I Learned: Science has a huge arsenal to throw at curiosity, if it so chooses. Kristy and others are making use of all sorts of technologies, breaking new ground and creating cross-disciplinary approaches that will surely open new pathways to our understanding of this complex constellation of feelings and behaviors we call curiosity.

What I Loved: I found Kristy’s approach to blowing the definition of custody wide open thrilling. Whether or not you accept the premise that we’re all equally curious, the notion that we may not yet have a grip on the full spectrum of curiosity is exciting and telling. Obviously, we still have a lot to learn and there will be plenty more to talk about!

Kristy Johnson is the seventh in my series of interviews with the contributing authors to the forthcoming anthology Curiosity Studies: A New Ecology of Knowledge (University of Minnesota Press, 2020).  Stay tuned for future episodes!

Meet Kristy Johnson. 

Check out the exciting work being done at The Lab School and MIT Media Lab.

Theme music by Sean Balick.  Check out Sean’s new album “From the Pines”. 

You can subscribe to Choose to be Curious on Apple Podcasts/ iTunes and Stitcher.

Check out the Choose to be Curious shop!*

*Any purchase from the Choose to be Curious shop supports Arlington Independent Media. Please also consider making a donation at wera.fm. Thanks!