Aristotle begins his book, Metaphysics with a simple observation: “All men by nature desire to know.” What he was describing more than two thousand years ago, was not about useful knowledge, but the pleasure of knowing itself – the satisfaction that comes from understanding the mechanics of the world, regardless of what that understanding gets you. 

Centuries of institutional education, however, have gradually distanced us from that human tendency. The late-capitalistic era has further commodified knowledge. Many now weigh the benefit of gaining knowledge through a value system: can it be monetised, posted on LinkedIn, or attached to a resume. The question we have learned to ask is ‘where will this get me?’ And the person who pursues knowledge without an answer to the question can seem, depending on the vantage point, either eccentric or enviable.

Yet, the Aristotelian philosophy of learning, without accounting for utility, persists.

Learning for refuge

Chennai based state-level tennis player Charanya Sreekirishnan says, as tennis evolved from a hobby into a profession, the pleasure it once gave her got buried under the weight and intensity of the game. So she picked up crochet. “In tennis, everything matters, your technique, your form, your ranking. Crochet, however, is the opposite. There is no audience, no pressure for perfection. I wanted to learn something without constantly measuring myself against it. When I crochet, my mind feels most at ease, I am only focused on the process. It brought back the joy of learning something new,” she said.

There is a psychological term for what Charanya is describing: flow, a concept developed by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Flow, he argued, emerges when a task is demanding enough to require complete attention, but sufficiently within reach to allow meaningful engagement. In this state of deep absorption, distractions fade and attention becomes fully fixed on the activity itself. Learning a new skill occupies exactly that zone.

Learning for autonomy

Learning is also, for many, a way of reclaiming a sense of agency. Sarojini, a 48 year old homemaker, describes it as finding a renewed sense of purpose. "At one point, life settles into a rhythm and you begin searching for something that belongs entirely to you," she explains. "I noticed how much we spent on tailoring at home and thought, why can't I learn this myself? Learning it felt empowering. After that, I kept wanting to learn more things.” She has since begun teaching herself Tamil Brahmi to read temple inscriptions. “I could always go to a teacher,” she adds, “but part of the joy lies in teaching yourself.”

Learning, ‘learning’ through observation / learning by example

Curiosity, it turns out, is contagious – absorbed through observation rather than instruction. Sanjana, Sarojini’s daughter, traces her own inclination toward learning directly to watching her mother. “My mother always tried learning new things on her own, and I think that stayed with me,” she said. “I learned French and German, even though I may never use them professionally or otherwise. But the joy and satisfaction that come from learning something purely because you want to, is difficult to describe, it's something beyond satisfaction.” 

What Sanjana describes exists outside the metrics in modern learning, something you cannot evaluate or quantify, a kind of intellectual euphoria. “I think everyday happiness is deeply tied to self-betterment. Learning something new, without a defined purpose, can bring a kind of fulfillment people often underestimate,” she observes.

Learning as reinvention

In principle, even the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 attempts to move education closer to that idea. Its emphasis on experiential learning, storytelling, arts integration, and reduced academic pressure reflects a recognition that learning cannot remain confined to rote memorisation and measurable outcome alone.

But if curiosity has to be taught back into education, how does one relearn it as an adult?

Karthick, a British Airways cabin crew member of nineteen years said, "When you stay in the same job for a long time, life slowly falls into a pattern,” he said. “I became a cabin crew because I loved travelling, but after a point, once you have seen enough places, you begin asking yourself what else there is to experience." Scuba diving, which began as a birthday dare at forty, became his answer to that. “I realised I had gone nearly two decades without learning something entirely new,” he added. “But after my first dive, I kept going back and taking more advanced courses, the thrill of learning and curiosity to explore a completely new world became addictive." Since then, he has completed 125 dives and is already planning his next. 

Unlike childhood, where learning is structured and compulsory, adult curiosity re-emerges through voluntary acts of exploration. It is self-directed, driven less by obligation and more by the desire to experience novelty again – all it takes is one's willingness to try.

Learning and desensitisation

In some cases, curiosity also becomes a way of re-examining long held fears. A 21 year old BDS student from Kerala, Indhulekha, says she began working with clay and resin casually as a hobby, eventually creating sculptures of snakes and spiders despite having long feared reptiles and arthropods. “There was a trend online involving sculptures of snakes and spiders, and I attempted it out of curiosity,” she said. “What surprised me was that the more time I spent sculpting them and studying their anatomy, textures, and detailing, the more I started appreciating their beauty.” 

The American philosopher and educator John Dewey believed, education is not preparation for life, but life itself. Learning, in his view, was not something that happened before living began. It was the mode of living most fully realised. 

In that sense, the joy of learning, at its core, has little to do with what is being learned, why it is being learned, or what utility it offers. It is something far more radical: the refusal to link curiosity with purpose, knowledge with monetisation, and exploration with destination.