Wondering #1212

You may think the greats had something you don't, but upgraded thinking knows you already have what they had.

Here's the story.

In fifteen oh eight, Leonardo da Vinci made a to-do list for the day.

Most of it was ordinary stuff: get forceps, get a scalpel, get ahold of a skull.

And then in the middle of all that, he wrote, "Describe the tongue of the woodpecker." For centuries, people read that as just quirky, a genius being odd.

Walter Isaacson, a biographer, didn't.

He did what Leonardo would have done and went looking.

It turns out a woodpecker's tongue is so long it wraps around the inside of the bird's skull, which helps stabilize its brain while it hammers a tree.

It wasn't a random note.

It was a frontier.

Leonardo wanted to know why people yawn, how they walk on ice, what makes a heart valve close, why the edges of shadows blur.

Nobody assigned him any of it.

Isaacson opens the book with a line from Albert Einstein, quote, "I have no special talent.

I am only passionately curious," end quote.

Curious comes from the Latin word cura that we get the word care.

It's special interest or taking trouble.

Leonardo had talent, so did Einstein, but talent wasn't what set them apart.

Curiosity was.

It doesn't take a genius either.

Herb Kelleher, founder of Southwest Er- Airlines, when his son studied physics, Herb started reading physics, so they'd have something to talk about.

Before a speech in Richmond, Virginia, he read a three-hundred-page history of the city.

At dinner that night, he was pointing out where the old battle works had stood.

A colleague said, "He didn't do it to show off.

He did it because he loves history." He put more care into it than was necessary.

You can't predict what curiosity pays.

You may think the greats had something you don't, but upgraded thinking knows you already have what they had.

Here's the story.

In fifteen oh eight, Leonardo da Vinci made a to-do list for the day.

Most of it was ordinary stuff: get forceps, get a scalpel, get ahold of a skull.

And then in the middle of all that, he wrote, "Describe the tongue of the woodpecker." For centuries, people read that as just quirky, a genius being odd.

Walter Isaacson, a biographer, didn't.

He did what Leonardo would have done and went looking.

It turns out a woodpecker's tongue is so long it wraps around the inside of the bird's skull, which helps stabilize its brain while it hammers a tree.

It wasn't a random note.

It was a frontier.

Leonardo wanted to know why people yawn, how they walk on ice, what makes a heart valve close, why the edges of shadows blur.

Nobody assigned him any of it.

Isaacson opens the book with a line from Albert Einstein, quote, "I have no special talent.

I am only passionately curious," end quote.

Curious comes from the Latin word cura that we get the word care.

It's special interest or taking trouble.

Leonardo had talent, so did Einstein, but talent wasn't what set them apart.

Curiosity was.

It doesn't take a genius either.

Herb Kelleher, founder of Southwest Er- Airlines, when his son studied physics, Herb started reading physics, so they'd have something to talk about.

Before a speech in Richmond, Virginia, he read a three-hundred-page history of the city.

At dinner that night, he was pointing out where the old battle works had stood.

A colleague said, "He didn't do it to show off.

He did it because he loves history." He put more care into it than was necessary.

You can't predict what curiosity pays.