Juan David's Newsletter - July 5, 2020
Hi there,
Hey, it’s Sunday! I hope you had cool plans for the weekend.
In my neighborhood, people have been celebrating with fireworks for the past two months every single day nonstop.
Bang Pop Whoosh 🎆.
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This week’s essay was suggested by many of you, especially Salvador after I started the Curiosities section of my newsletter.
The essay is about how to explore your curiosities what it means to pursue them.
One quick thing: Welcome to the ones of you who have joined us since last Sunday’s email! If you’re here but haven’t subscribed, it’s fun and easy. Just write your email below.
Don’t forget to check out the Curiosities 🙀🧨🤩 section below!
Curiosity Killed The Cat? Curiosities Will Make You Alive
If you prefer, you can read this essay on my website.
“The future belongs to the curious. The ones who are not afraid to try it, explore it, poke at it, question it, and turn it inside out.” - Unknown
To pursue your curiosities means to be a human. To be a human means to be creative. To be creative means to express yourself in curious ways.
What are Curiosities?
They are ideas, topics, people, or things that somehow seem interesting to you. You know they are curiosities when you feel the need to learn more about them. Not only the need but also an inspiration to discover what the curiosities are about.
My life’s mission is about pursuing my Curiosities while I write essays & books, invent products, and create companies.
I love curiosities so much that I pursue and try to discover them every week in a section (called Curiosities) of my newsletter where I share thought-provoking ideas or trends. This is also the place where I share personal updates and the new projects I’m working on.
When I pursue my curiosities, I feel both passionate and energetic. When I pursue them I try to find ones that 1) help people, and 2) I care about. That’s the secret formula.
Why Pursue Your Curiosities?
In the Curiosities section of my newsletter. A friend was inspired by my Curiosities, and he created a blog where he explores his curiosities. That’s all it takes. He had an idea, was inspired by it, and went for it.
Pursuing your curiosities is a powerful way to reignite your soul, you might also discover more about yourself along the way.
All you need to do is things that seem curious to you.
How?
Pursuing and developing your curiosities is about understanding who you are and figuring out what works best for you. Let’s understand who you are:
This graphic was inspired by Vero Ruiz Del Vizo
You can find a personality that you identify with and start sharing your curiosities. Unless you are a sorehead, in which case you will probably just criticize me and move on.
This isn’t limited and you can try and experiment with different platforms no matter what your personality is. For example, I’m very active on Twitter and YouTube.
You need not pursue your curiosities publicly, but I’d highly encourage you too. The quality will be ten times better and you will attract like-minded people as well as amazing opportunities that can change your life. If that’s still unconvincing, try pursuing your curiosities under a pseudonym.
Your personality or fear shouldn’t be limiting factors, you just need to get started and be yourself. You need not be perfect. Just focus on being yourself.
Pursuing Curiosities is a Lifestyle
Pursuing your curiosities is a novel pursuit because you need to be confident and trust yourself when others might not.
For instance, I have no formal background in fields such as statistics or physics. Yet, I’m deeply fascinated by those topics because of how they help me see the world differently. I read books, write essays, watch videos, and email experts in those fields because I am curious about those topics.
Fascination is powerful because it’s the only thing that can make you driven to the point where work feels like play.
Curiosities will ignite your soul and make you alive once again. When you seek them, you will discover who you are, and you will find the opportunities you most want.
It may sound simple, but it’s difficult because you need to be yourself and get started.
Did curiosity kill the cat? Curiosities will make you alive.
Curiosities 🙀🧨🤩
Curiosity #1
I wrote this week’s essay because some of you suggested me to. If you’d like me to write an essay about a certain topic or would be curious to hear my thoughts/perspective on something. REPLY to this email.
Curiosity #2
If you have been subscribed to the newsletter for a few weeks, you saw that I’d read a book a week. Since quarantine started, I started reading the oldest book in history (Hint: It’s 73 books in one!).
I had to come back read this one this week. This is one of my favorite books because of how beautiful and interesting it is. As you can see, this is a book about physics, but in reality, this is a book about the joy of discovery.
Check out the book here or read the essay I wrote about the author and his other books.
Curiosity #3
As a part of Progress Studies for Young Scholars (a course I’m taking about the history of technology). I was gifted two amazing books 1) The Art of Doing Science and Engineering by Richard Hamming, and 2) The Dream Machine by M. Mitchell Waldrop.
Thanks to Patrick Collision from Stripe & Stripe Press and Jason Crawford from Roots of Progress!
Curiosity #4
I discovered this image of Australia and Pluto. What do you think is bigger?
Curiosity #5
This picture was taken on the 4th of July in 2018 in Philadelphia. I was doing a summer program at UPenn and decided to go with a friend to the museums and the famous Liberty Bell.
Remembering is a way to live again and feel how you felt at those moments.
After I saw this picture, I sent it to my friend and told him how we were waiting to eat with all our friends later, but they got super late so we were literally starving (or as fancy people call it “intermittent fasting”).
You’re in a good place when:
Entertainment becomes boring.
The “boring” becomes entertainment.
Think about this week as you go through this week and the summertime.
Thanks for reading,
Juan David Campolargo
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Juan David Campolargo 🚀
Twitter: @jdcampolargo 🧠
Blogging at JuanDavidCampolargo.com ✍️
Weekly Memos & Updates: HERE 🙀
Watch my TEDx Talk, 'Inspiring the Next Generations to be More Optimistic,' HERE