Stay curious, my friends

I spent the last week on a book tour through a portion of Western Montana. One of my stops was in Virginia City, and as I was leaving town the next morning, I decided to see if there was a golf course nearby where I could play nine holes.

I was happy to find a course called Madison Meadows just a few miles from town, where I stopped and got my gear. Although it was a Saturday morning, I just assumed that it wouldn’t be difficult to play on a course that is essentially out in the middle of nowhere. But the golf pro frowned when I told him I didn’t have a tee time. 

“Dangit, it’s too bad you didn’t show up about fifteen minutes ago. I sent a threesome out and you could have joined them.” He studied his computer and asked “Can you come back in about a half hour?”

“Nah, I’m on my way to Helena, so I can’t stick around.”

Now if you’ve spent any time around golf courses, it’s not unusual for a golf pro to show only a mild interest in you if you’re a stranger, but this guy was clearly disappointed in not being able to help me out, and after thinking for a minute, he said “Hey, I have a golf cart out there that’s a little faster than most of them. Would you be OK with grabbing that cart and catching up to those guys on the first green?” 

“Sure!” I said. 

So the next thing I knew, he was waving his arms, giving me directions for where to go to catch up to these guys, and when he wasn’t satisfied with that plan, he followed me out and grabbed a cart of his own and drove me halfway there so I wouldn’t get lost. 

I pulled up to the first green, where three guys who were probably in their early thirties were just finishing.

“Hi guys, the pro said I could join you if that’s OK.”

“Sure,” one of them said. “But we’re terrible golfers.”

He wasn’t lying. But that’s never bothered me. What I did notice, though, was something that’s been a troubling trend I’ve noticed in recent years. I spent two hours with these guys, who were very nice, very friendly guys. And I asked them a lot of questions about their lives. They all worked in mines, two of them in Butte and the third in a mine near Sheridan, Montana. But during that entire two hour period, none of them asked me a single question. 

I have noticed this often with people from that generation and younger. It’s not that I find it annoying so much as it makes me very concerned about what it says about younger generations in America. There has been a lot of talk about how COVID impacted young people, and I’m guessing that’s one factor. There’s also no question that social media has had a huge impact on peoples’ ability to connect with others. But what I find most bothersome about this is trying to understand what’s behind this lack of curiosity. 

When I meet someone, my natural tendency is to wonder what their story is: Where did they grow up? What do they do for a living? How did they meet their spouse? Are they a parent?

When someone shows none of that interest in me, I always assume that they have the same attitude toward anyone they meet, and I don’t understand that. Deciding you know all you need to know about other people is also going to translate to knowing all you need to know about the rest of the world as well. And that kind of closed-mindedness doesn’t foster growth. Or more importantly, empathy for other people. How can you possibly know whether you share any interests or opinions or even shared history without asking questions?

Today I went to a funeral for a young man I met about 10 years ago, when he was still in his early twenties. He was a good example of a young man who showed exactly that kind of curiosity. When I met Brian, he was working in a sporting goods store, running the machines that stitch the lettering on jerseys and hats. He enrolled in college, and completed his bachelor’s degree in three years, then went directly into the master’s program for business, and also completed that. 

He was interested in joining or running a business consultation firm, so his father set up a meeting with a local businessman. Knowing Brian, he came into this meeting overly prepared, and not just prepared to tell the man about himself, but prepared to ask many questions. He made such an impression on this man that the man told him that he not only wanted to hire him, but that he wanted to train him to take over the business once he retired. They came to an agreement, and during the course of the next few years, Brian slowly took over. 

But his approach to this venture was not to come in and tell everyone how things were going to be. Brian chose to consult with other businessmen and coaches so he could be the best possible boss he could be. 

Brian became a husband and a father, and he had the same attitude toward those duties. He wanted to do things right. He met with various people asking their advice. He was endlessly trying to improve. And it may have been this desire to be perfect that was his downfall. Brian stumbled a couple of times, and his inability to forgive himself plagued him. He got caught in a mental loop that he couldn’t seem to escape. It was painful to watch, and even more painful when he came begging for help, and it felt as if there was no easy answer. 

I have not been able to stop thinking about Brian since I found out about his passing last week. He was 34 years old. He was one of the smartest young men I’ve ever met. He had a wonderfully dry sense of humor, and a wisdom that was rare for a man so young. It is never easy to try and understand where things go wrong with people you love. But I know in Brian’s case, his downfall was not the result of lack of effort, or lack of willingness to ask for help. All of which makes his death that much more baffling and tragic.