I will explore, not conquer

I will explore, not conquer!

I have some habits of thought I know really aren't good for me. Some months ago I managed to summarize for myself the nature of my ill thoughts: I am as a conqueror, or I feel pressured to be as a conqueror, when I would be happier, healthier, more curious, more truly loving and able to share with others, if I were as an explorer instead.

I don't remember where I saw the graffito
but here is another street of Edinburgh's
city center—also, there is something written
in chalk in runes somewhere around here! I
should try to decipher them sometime.

Recently I passed a mysterious graffito; couldn't tell what the drawing was supposed to represent. In a 'conquering' frame of mind, I entertained some insecurity, some feeling of isolation; I envied the people who were in on its meaning. I defensively jumped to a little comforting daydream about being in on some cool secret symbol myself.

But why should I do that? It would be nice if I could perceive strange things as curiosities, exciting things, not get scared of them and see competition in them, objects of conquest. What a nasty pattern I'd fallen into, where I'd fancy one-upping some weird graffiti instead of speculating about what it meant or something.

That is just the sort of situation I'd had in mind when I first came up with "exploring, not conquering," but now I've noticed just how much deeper the idea goes to explain where my defect is— Some days ago I came across the museum news website Culture24 and its children-aimed counterpart, Show Me. These websites feel nice. Instead of jealously guarding their elite knowledge, these scholarly people are trying to spread it to the general public. They want the general public to be educated and curious, leaving their figurative 'territory' for the enjoyment of all rather than claiming it for themselves, and I can feel comfortable and unintimidated by them. Show Me particularly reminds me of being a child and reading lots of kids' books about different things in the world, not worrying about claiming any topics for my identity, not breaking knowledge down into my official interests versus things I wasn't interested in, not expecting to gain anything from it but pleasure and a couple of facts to impress people with. These days I've bound pleasure and knowledge so tightly to ego and pride to the point I feel out of place and even very embarrassed in a social way trying to learn something I don't know much about, especially if there's someone in my life who has that topic in their own domain.

The problem I have with conquering does a little more than make me insecure, competitive, and envious, then. It also makes me less able to appreciate the world with sensitivity and curiosity. If I explore instead of conquer—if I can walk into new 'territories' without being preoccupied with whether they're mine or not and whether I belong—I will be able to appreciate many more new lands, and my focus will be not on myself, but on the fascinating things around me.

I've also been working on fiction writing more than usual recently. I've gotten in the habit of idly looking through potential places to submit my writing to procrastinate doing homework. In doing so, I started several stories, a greater rate than I'd started projects at for a long time, simply on whims, and of types and on topics sometimes quite distant from what I'd expect myself to write. It was the most free and pleasurable experience I'd had writing in a while. I attribute it to browsing those literary markets so extensively and finding standards so different in kind from my own restrictive tastes, and finding them a good 'excuse' for deviating from my usual. Or, my chosen writing style and sort of content will continue to be what I like best, but choosing them is not conquering them. There is more to see outside of my own territory, and even within what I consider my own territory, I am still an explorer.

I hope that makes sense.