Curiosity: The Conscientious Objector to Cognitive Dissonance

The First Questions

I attended a Catholic grammar school that had no gymnasium or chapel. Because of that, we often took long walks. The half-mile walk to The Immaculate Conception Church led us down some of the busiest streets in the city.

Across from the church was the Green. The homeless lived there, directly across not just from that church, but from four of them, one on each corner of the square.

One day, I asked Sister Joan why the church, with all its empty pews and unused rooms, didn’t offer space to the people outside. After all, there was so much gold and grandeur inside.

She looked at me with a sad softness in her eyes, searching for words before finally saying the police wouldn’t let them.

I was a child, so I don’t know if that was true. But even then, I couldn’t understand how any church that claimed to follow Christ could leave people freezing on its doorstep.

Learning to Silence the Self

As a kid, I asked a lot of questions.
Why? How? That doesn’t make sense. Can you explain?

But the more I asked, the more I was told to stop.
“Because that’s just how it is.”
“Don’t overthink.”
“You ask too many questions.”

When you’re a curious, pattern-spotting, hyper-attuned kid, especially a neurodivergent one, that kind of response doesn’t just quiet curiosity. It creates cognitive dissonance: a painful clash between what you see and what you’re told to believe.

To survive that tension, I learned to override my own signals.
To smile when things didn’t make sense.
To nod even when something felt wrong.
To people-please my way into safety.

That survival skill worked, but it also trained me to distrust myself. Every time I ignored my own perception to maintain peace, the gap between truth and belonging grew wide, as well as the distance between me and myself.

The Quiet Way Back

Over time, I found a quieter way back. I learned to ask better questions. Not to accuse or confront, but to name the dissonance gently and stay curious when everything in me wanted to shut down.

That practice, curiosity in the face of contradiction, became the bridge back to self-trust. And lately, I have been thinking about how that same dynamic plays out at scale.

The Systems That Mirror the Split

In workplaces that call themselves “family” while people are burning out.
Where job descriptions offer entry level wages and executive level expectations.
Where you need ten years of experience in software that launched five years ago.

In politics where leaders speak of freedom while legislating control.
Where those in power collect lifelong healthcare and six-figure salaries while debating whether others deserve a living wage or access to medicine.

In cultures that reward compliance while preaching authenticity.
Be yourself… just not like that.

The Questions That Bring Us Home

In these places, you can ask:
What stories are being protected by this contradiction?
Who benefits from my silence?
What would integrity look like here, even if it costs me belonging?

Curiosity is not passive. It is an act of resistance against the normalization of harm. It is how we begin to see clearly, grieve honestly, and return to self-trust in a world that profits from our confusion.

The work, personal and collective, is the same.
To stop betraying what we know in order to belong.
To believe what we see, even when it is inconvenient.
And to remember that wholeness begins where performance ends.

💭 What helps you stay curious when it feels safer to look away?