to be curious is to be alive

about a frog in the well

While I was working mid-day, a question posted by Velli on Twitter caught my attention.

“How do you guys search for motivation as designers? What's keeping the fire alive?”, she asked.

As someone who still has her passion and in fact, is burning brighter these past few days. I wonder why as well. “Why am I this motivated?”, “Why am I this passionate?”, “What’s the trigger?”, I asked myself. Taking my time to reflect, I figured out a thought which lies in being curious.

So I answered, “curiosity, but sometimes curiosity itself needs to be ignited. that 'ignition' for me, comes from a low-effort activity which is to let ourselves be 'open' to new ideas, trends, different fields, etc. i believe as we got exposed, we'll find something to be curious about again”

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Have you ever heard of the proverb “a frog in the well”?

If you haven’t, it’s about how a frog imagines the dark confined well as its sole home, to be its whole world, and to be pompous of one’s self. However, that idyllic world soon shattered when another frog falls into the well. Debunking the reality of the original frog that its small world is just a sheer dot of the whole world.

This narrative is a reminder that our own perceptions can be limited and that we must keep an open mind to the larger realities that exist beyond our immediate environment. In a sense, it’s to be open in venturing out of our wells.

Lately, I've been finding myself strongly relating to this saying. My second internship journey was in fact, a blessing in disguise. Initially, I had planned to take another tech-product design internship, but circumstances beyond my control forced me to reroute my plans and landed me at my current place, a design innovation studio. This opportunity, unexpectedly, has exposed me to a whole new horizon of design, allowing me to meet new people, learn from their unique journeys, work on a research project that avenues knowledge, and sparks my interest. At last, proving the fact that venturing out of my well amplifies the fire I had within me for design.

(side note: talking about this reminds me of the Attack on Titan plot… where Eren is always curious about what’s beyond the wall (which we now know aha))