West Linn, Oregon, U.S.A. – From afar, this one looks like an obsidian marble. It is painted with patterns of constellations, bright lines and little speckled dots replicating the night sky.
A different one is painted to look like the moon. Over an ombre of blues, its surface is dappled with labeled landmarks. Mare Crisium, Joliot crater, Imbrium Sculpture.
The room is filled with globes.
My favorite one shows paths of solar eclipses. The Earth’s oceans are painted a uniform shade of deep blue, and each eclipse looks like a path of gold dust strewn across the continents by fairies.
One path passes through Angola and continues across the Atlantic Ocean; the globe says that on December 14, 2020, there was a solar eclipse that lasted for 2 minutes and 10 seconds.
Following another golden path, I learn that on August 12, 2064, there will be one that lasts 4 minutes and 28 seconds.
The day is summery and busy. In almost every room on each of the library’s three floors, most seats are taken.
Cords are strewn across tables, unused headphones inch precariously to desktop corners, and the pleasantly dissonant sound of 30 different keyboards fills the rooms next door. If not for the lack of chairs, these unmistakable traces of human activity would probably extend here, too.
Under the nearby weight of people’s carefully directed attention and papers occasionally turning in unison, everything seems purposeful.
Strangely, it was this room that reminded me of what may be the most important piece of advice I’ve ever received. Put most simply: be curious.
Or, because that does sound deceptively simple: do not lose your curiosity.
Walking through this room of maps was the first time this summer that I felt excited to go back to school. If I had said that three years ago – when I was about to start high school – I would have looked at myself like I was crazy.
I would have walked into the map room, distracted by a sense of blindly searching for something unnamed, and then wandered out the next set of doors.
But in a busy library’s only unoccupied room on this summer day, the endless questions that came to mind as I spun the globes held my interest for far longer than I thought they would.
Why is there a Sea of Crises on the moon? What happened there?
If birds are migrating across a path of an eclipse, do they get confused?
Can I see a constellation tonight? How do you even tell it’s a constellation and not just a random gathering of stars? Who decides that a constellation becomes a constellation rather than just an unnamed shape in the sky?
Your curiosity will make any room you walk into seem interesting. In school and in life, that ability is powerful.
In my experience, curiosity will add back the color and dimension to your life that you never realized you had lost.
So in a sea of advice inevitably offered each cheerfully announced “back-to-school” season about how to approach high school – challenge yourself, don’t forget to sleep, stay organized, get involved, make friends but don’t lose yourself in the process – the piece I want you to know is the one I was reminded of while looking at the globes.
If this is your first year in a new school, many things are uncertain. When I was about to start high school, that uncertainty was where a lot of my nervousness came from.
I wish that back then, someone had reminded me that everything unknown also brings a lot of newness. Even if you feel apprehensive about returning to school, I want you to remember that curiosity can transform everything you don’t know into something to discover. That’s exciting.
Curiosity is just a pull to know or learn. It’s a spark of interest that leads to making an inquiry.
Follow your thoughts of “I wonder…” every time. You will not always know where it will take you, but sometimes it will lead to new friends, new interests, new beginnings. Don’t forget or disregard them in favor of things that are more certain.
Take risks! I think we often forget how young we really are. In high school, it can feel like there is only one timeline.
Everything around you will tell you this: Your guidance counselors will say “Here’s how many classes you need to take this year so that you can graduate on time.”
In the hallways, there will be a perpetual cycle of posters marking the slowly-changing seasons with announcements of assorted upcoming events. They seem to shout, “For a limited time only, you have the world open before you.”
But right now, you have – literally – the most time you will ever have. To make mistakes, to change your mind, to realize that your curiosity has led you somewhere you could never have imagined.
Ask a lot of questions.
You have millions of moments that you have not yet experienced. Millions of people you have not yet met.
Embrace being lost. Embrace the curiosity that comes from not knowing what is ahead of you.
The moments questioning the world or yourself will be some of the most memorable.
The answers might take you in unexpected directions. Over time, you might find yourself asking unexpected questions as your path changes.
This is the perfect time for plans to be changed. Time is never as limited and plans are never as set as they seem.
Now – panicking over the infinite number of paths I could take after graduating high school – I am reminded of how I had a similar set of worries when I was first starting. How do you ever know that you are making the right choice? You don’t.
There will not be enough time to try every single activity or class. Every time you take a different route in the hallway or decide on a whim to take the chance and talk to a new person, you discover a slightly new way of experiencing the world, but also lose what it would have been like before.
But in all likelihood, your curiosity will lead you to realize that the world is expansive. Be curious about how much one choice could change your life. I found a lot of excitement in that.
The times in high school that I have been most concerned about myself are the ones where the world has lost its spark and I stop having questions about it. If that happens to you – if, sometime this winter, you feel lost in a spread of textbook pages or seemingly endless open tabs demanding your attention – and you no longer know why you are sitting there, challenge yourself to ask a question.
Any question.
Where is that line of ants across the table coming from? Do they have their own ant civilization?
Is the concept of time measured in the same way across the world?
Why do we see shapes in clouds? How do ecosystems stay balanced? Why does history seem to repeat itself?
And then, remember why learning is fun. Even for the people who self-profess to hate school so much, the process of learning and discovering new things is what makes life worthwhile.
People who like plants see interesting plants everywhere. The stream you step over on the way to school without a second thought suddenly becomes the most important place in the world for the aspiring biologist.
High school is an opportunity. The first step to framing the world with curiosity is to eliminate the fear that often accompanies new starts.
Your purpose in high school is to acquire the knowledge – about the world, but also about yourself – that will allow you to shape your future.
The world around you is amazing and magical, but sometimes you need a bit of curiosity to see that.
Find out where your room full of globes is. Ask questions until you find more. Repeat.
Annamika Konkola is a Senior Reporter with Youth Journalism International.
