I want to talk about radical curiosity.
Not the cute, casual kind.
Not “huh, that’s interesting.”
I mean the kind where you’re almost excited to be wrong.
Because being wrong isn’t a failure.
It’s proof that your world just got bigger.
This is the Village Voice.
I’m Alli Gatlin — your
Menace of clarity — home of the the Written Identity Podcast.
The place where we talk perspective, journaling, identity…
and the messy, human reality of being alive.
So let’s talk about curiosity.
You know that moment when you’re driving and someone cuts you off —
and suddenly you’re furious?
And then everything spirals.
One bad interaction becomes a bad mood.
A bad mood turns into defensiveness.
A text lands weird.
A comment hits wrong.
And now the whole day feels like it’s out to get you.
But what if …
just stay with me…
what if instead of reacting, you paused?
Not to fix it.
Not to explain yourself.
Not to prove anything.
Just to get curious.
What if you asked, “What else could be true here?”
Maybe you misread the tone.
Maybe they’re carrying something you can’t see.
Maybe you actually do disagree deeply
and they might be out of their damn mind.
Curiosity doesn’t mean agreement.
It doesn’t mean letting people off the hook.
It means you don’t collapse into reaction.
Because certainty feels powerful —
but it shrinks you.
Certainty closes the door.
Curiosity opens the room.
Here’s the real question:
What would you learn if you were willing to be wrong?
Every time you choose curiosity over defensiveness,
you create space.
And clarity only shows up when there’s space to land.
Curiosity is the pause between what happens
and what you decide it means about you.
So I’ll leave you with this unfinished on purpose:
What can you be curious about today?
Where are you gripping certainty because it feels safer than not knowing?
I dare you — just once — to be willing to be wrong.
Not to shrink.
But to expand.
Set the noise down.
Let clarity find you.
We’ll pick this back up next time.
Love buckets.
