We’ve all heard phrases like ‘Curiosity killed the cat,’ but is the same curiosity that killed the cat all that bad? I don’t think so.

     Throughout my life, I’ve had people tell me things like, “Stop being too nosy,” or, “Stop asking so many questions.” But why should I stop? Why should I quit what I want to do just because it might hurt me? Because it might not be a good thing? Because I might get into trouble? I should be able to let my curiosity take over and let the consequences of my actions teach me a lesson.

     If you’ve ever been taught about Greek mythology, then chances are you have heard the story of Pandora’s box. Pandora was the first and the most beautiful woman on Earth. She was sculpted out of clay and was given gifts along with life from each of the Greek gods. One of the gifts she was given happened to be a box called “phitos” in Greek. The gods told her that she was not allowed to open the box, but her curiosity got the best of her. She opened the box and all of the tragedy, sadness and the evil spirits released themselves. 

     People use Pandora’s box as a way to show that curiosity is a terrible thing to have, but honestly, it’s just human nature. So many people have discovered wonderful things because of their curious nature. Scuba divers find ancient history lost in the vast bodies of water on Earth. The Ship of Gold, remains of the Titanic and even statues have been found in these scuba investigations. 

     Plenty of times I have let my curiosity get the best of me. I vaguely remember one time I was at Toys-R-Us and I was very distracted by all the toys and moving items in the store. I wandered away from my parents to go looking for a Lego set that I really wanted. I finally found the set I was looking for, only to look around again and see that I lost my family. I searched what seemed like the whole store, tears rolling down my face like a waterfall. I got to the point where I gave up searching for my family and waddled my little self up to the cashiers and asked if they could announce my parents’ names so they could find me. When my parents came up to the cash register, they yelled at me for going off on my own but ended up buying me the set that I wanted. My curious nature helped in the end, but not with ease.

     Eighth-grade math teacher Jeni Suehs slightly disagrees with the idea that curiosity isn’t bad.

     “[A time that curiosity is bad] is right now. Kids [are] using Chat GPT and testing artificial intelligence (AI) until everything turns into Skynet (from the movie franchise Terminator). People should definitely stop investing and investigating further into AI, or else who knows what would happen?” Suehs said.

     After seeing movies like Terminator, M3GAN, Avengers, Transformers and many other robot movies, it is very clear to see where she is coming from. 

     Google worker Ray Kurzweil predicts that in the near future, by approximately 2029, robots will be as intelligent as humans, if not smarter. We already have robots that can calculate pi to the 62.8 trillionth digit and robots that can nurse people back to health, discovered by someone with a very curious nature, so why wouldn’t we be able to expand that curiosity and either stop them or keep them going?

     There is a popular book from the Lunar Chronicles series titled Cinder, written by Marissa Meyers. Cinder is a book that plays off of the story of Cinderella but in a very different way. Cinder is about a teenage girl who is also a cyborg. Her parents seemingly died in a car crash, leaving her all alone in a city called Commonwealth with her stepmother and stepsisters. She works as a mechanic and one day is visited by the prince of Commonwealth, Prince Kai. He visits her because his escort droid, Nansi, stopped working. While trying to figure out what caused Nansi to stop working, Cinder found a D-COMM chip planted inside the droid. Instead of reporting this to Kai right away, she becomes curious and calls whoever put the chip inside of Nansi. When the person on the other side picks up, Cinder is told that she and Kai are in danger. This vague insight as to what is about to happen to her leads her on a mission to save Commonwealth.

     Many people in many ways are curious by nature, so who should stop it? Let people be curious; who knows what could happen if we all let our curiosity go free?