It took me decades to understand what an intensely curious person I am. When I was younger I didn’t see myself as “smart” because I struggled in school. I also moved schools every few years and was incredibly shy. In elementary someone asked me if I was a foreign exchange student because I never talked.

But looking back, I can see my curiosity was always there, I’d get engrossed in something, embody it until there was nothing left to glean and then move on to the next thing. I used to feel shame about this, wondering why I couldn’t find my one thing and just stick with it.

But this is how my brain works, and now that I understand it, I adore it even when it frustrates me. A few years back, I wrote out all the things I had ever been mildly obsessed about (plants as kin, Butoh, Mayan cosmology, medieval witchcraft, polaroid transfers, the horse-human relationship, psychogeography, psychometry, and on and on), I desperately needed to see a through line. And, I found it. Now, all the many interests and obsessions I can see are interconnected by this thread.

Obviously its not necessary to see a through line or have any of your interests and obsessions make sense, but it helped me to better understand myself and what I was up to. It helped me be on my own side and give myself more of what I needed.

…I’ve been thinking and writing about this for a while.

So much of my work is centered on supporting others with a similar type brain and way of being in the world. We can call it neurodivergence, but I’m not keen on feeling like I am diverging as much as I am emerging. So, inhabiting the orientation of a creative researcher and deep listener is way more interesting to me.

A few ways for understanding yourself as a researcher (aka an intensely curious human)

Are you on this list?

1. You’ve always been curious and have mostly let that part of you lead your life even when it made no sense to others.

2. You’ve been told you’re too intense - you ask too many questions.

3. You tend toward the existential in the fun and not-so-fun ways.

4. You have more books than human friends. You sometimes gather a stack of them around and feel like you’re at a fabulous dinner party, immensely content.

5. You dream of being fully funded to wander into the unknown and study the most niche thing like listening to the sounds of a glacier known as “End der Welt” - end of the world glacier.

6. You love the idea of running experiments, knowing that its the process of the experience not the outcome of results.

7. You understand research to go beyond the academic, and are drawn to the possibilities of it as a lifelong creative practice.

   What else should be on this list?

Listening Field Notes

last month I decided I wanted to have a way document my nerdy endeavors, not only for myself and my practice, but as a way to share with others.

Why I Started This Practice (and maybe you’ll start one too)

1. As a way to document and track my investigations, practices, and playful encounters.

2. To give myself a single question or inquiry to work with over the month (or longer if I choose).

3. So I can reflect on the many little things I engaged in, especially in times when my thoughts tell me I haven’t done anything toward my practices or I feel like I am only consuming versus actually learning.

4. So I can reflect back on the question posed, what I read, took note of, and experimented with when I am writing out my monthly reflection.

5. As an archive and reference for the many rabbit holes I hang out in.

A Few Tips for my Fellow Secret and Not-So Secret Researchers

1. Set-up an intuitive system for gathering your findings and curiosities. I use and adore Are.na (you can sign up for free). Are.na allows you to set up “channels” as a way to organize what you gather like links to websites, upload a pdf, video, or audio. Or collect images. (come hang out in my are.na world)

2. Consider the practice of digital gardening. There are so many ways to set up a digital garden space (as a website, as a blog, or on Notion). Digital gardening is the practice of not only gathering and organizing your interests, but a way to begin nerding out and synthesizing what you are discovering. I just took an amazing course with Podge Thomas (and met a new fellow research friend, hi Corrie!). I highly recommend Podge’s classes, especially if you’re interested in using Notion! And, she’s offering a Notion Summer Camp! P.S. - I’ll be sharing my public facing digital garden with you soon!

3. Add a Chrome extension to make it super easy to save web pages (I have one for Are.na, and one for saving to Notion (thanks Podge!). Especially great when you’re deep in all the rabbit holes and don’t want to lose track of things.

4. Take classes with other creative deep thinkers. I admit I take a lot of classes, and not all of them are as great as I hope they’ll be. But sometimes they are, and better yet, sometimes I meet the coolest people - like right now in Kening Zhu’s Digital Abundance course. Kening herself is a brilliant guide, and the folks in my cohort are incredibly inspiring. I can’t wait to share their work with you.

Sonic Field Trip Assignment #2

Thank you to those who submitted your sounds for assignment #1! I’ll be sharing a compilation of them soon.

Here’s the second assignment for Sonic Field Trip →

Record a sound or sounds that are the epitome of summer for you.

Maybe its the sound of a park sprinkler, the neighbor mowing the lawn, a summer tanager singing its heart out, the radio of a car passing by, kids screaming with joy, or you eating an ice cream cone.

May your curiosity allow you to be engaged in the nerdiest and all consuming research, also known as play!

with care,

Adrienne