Mama Tried

What is intellectual curiosity?  I mean, I KNOW what it means. I know kinda how to do it. But what IS it? In other words, what does dictionary.com say? Actually, nothing. It took me to Ask.com which means that even THEY (you know the smarty-smarts at dictionary.com) don’t even know what it means.

Shirley, from Yahoo! Answers says it means, “you want to know more than the basics or the common knowledge; you want to LEARN so you (and maybe others) can benefit from the knowledge; something to challenge you and make you think about problems and issues, and how to communicate with others about those issues and possibly resolve them.” And Shirley was voted as having the best answer. (Well, she was the only answer, but hey…)

Merriam Webster (mother freakin’ MERRIAM WEBSTER)  didn’t have an answer either. It tried to break the phrase into the two words and define them individually. Uh, I can do that, and I’m not even a Webster.

So, I turned to the internet’s supreme and most entertaining source – urbandictionary.com. I clicked and held my breath because I wasn’t sure just exactly what I was going to get. (Anyone who has visited this website before knows whatI’mtalkinbout.) Well, after being distracted – briefly – by suggested entries such as intellectual blue balls, intellectual douchebag, intellectual grabass, and my new self-appointed title, Intellectual Badass, I found it defined there as, “A desire to learn more about a person, or a thing, or a way of life.”

OK, this is the one I like. Short, sweet, and easily understood to the ADHD freak-show that I am. Sorry, Shirley, but you lost me with all your WORDS.

I am, then, intellectually curious. I like to know lots of stuff. I wonder about lots of things. How did we ever live without Wikipedia, Yahoo! (Sorry, I don’t Google, I Yahoo! It’s just way more fun to say. YahoooooOOOooo!), and Netflix streaming documentaries about the Shakers, Polio, and the Planet Earth (all of which I have watched)? I know a lot of stuff about a lot of stuff. Except sports which is what keeps me from being the ULTIMATE Trivial Pursuit partner. I even DVR Jeopardy and watch a bunch of them all in one sitting. Just soaking up the intellectualness. I like learning stuff about stuff. Except sports.

What can I say? I’m gifted.

But my real quandary is not what intellectual curiosity is – duh! My real quandary is how to get others, or more specifically, my two oldest (11 and 12 year old boys) to be intellectually curious.

I’ve tried museums but I get all stressed out when instead of marveling at how ancient people lived or how jellyfish can function without a brain, they are more marveled by their brother’s loud and nasty fart that sets off a giggle-fest that eventually draws me in. I do make them read AND talk about it afterwards, but that too ends in someone farting and me becoming angry at their lack of awe and interest in the literary qualities of the novel that has entertained generations of young boys before them. And documentaries? Yeah, tried those, too. It was the best naps they EVER took. But at least there was no farting.

I gave up. I have given birth to Dumb & Dumber! Larry, Moe, & Curley! Jackass Parts 1, 2, AND 3! I am not going to be the mother of the next Senator, CEO, or, even, Angus Young. I am a failure. I will apologize to their future wives and explain that MAMA TRIED!

But then one day, I walk into their bathroom. (It was on a dare from my husband.) Anyway, I walked in and saw, sitting on the shelf above the toilet, a BOOK. Now, granted, it was DC Comic’s Encyclopedia, but it was a BOOK. And it had the word Encyclopedia in it. I took it down and began reading some of it and realized something glorious. Hidden there in the pages of brightly-colored images of tights-wearing men assisted by young boys and very politically incorrect images of women, I found classical, highly-intellectual literature – ok, glimpses of literature. These superheroes’ stories mirrored the tales of mythological heroes and heroines such as Zeus, Poseidon, and Hermes. Great epic tales of good and evil were being retold through Superman, Aqua man (Yeah, I know he’s the lamest of all the supers.), and Flash. Good ol’, classic Greek mythology was right there wearing spandex and a cape. Not that they knew it. Not that they cared. But it was there.

My heart sung. My boys were reading mythology – sort of. There was some hope for them yet. The seeds of intellectual curiosity were being sewn, and when it was time for them to read Greek mythology –you know, for a grade and stuff - they would get it. They would connect it to something they already knew. So for now, their form of intellectual curiosity is not the same color, shape, or smell as mine. And that is ok. I’m just going to go have a glass of wine and celebrate my SUPER victory for today.

Conan O'Brien visits DC Comics.