Curiosity, creation, and the quiet instinct to possess

Humans possess an insatiable curiosity, a restlessness that continually pushes them to explore new boundaries. It is this quest that has given rise to newer technologies, enabling progress that often appears both inevitable and admirable. Yet, the same impulse carries within it a quieter, more troubling tendency — the desire not only to discover, but to possess; not only to reach, but to claim what was never inherently theirs, whether it be land, boundaries, or even fellow human lives. Over the past few months, I have come across two pieces of news that, in very different ways, reinforced this belief in the complex duality of human ambition. One of them was about researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, who have developed a solar-powered thermochemical battery using strontium bromide-an innovation capable of storing summer heat and releasing it during the freezing Himalayan winters. It offers a clean and cost-effective alternative to diesel-based heating, especially in remote, high-altitude regions, and holds the potential to significantly improve conditions for the local population, as well as for soldiers stationed in some of the harshest environments on Earth. Here, curiosity manifests as care, as problem-solving, as an extension of human ingenuity directed towards sustaining life. And yet, the same impulse that enables such life-sustaining innovation can, when left unchecked, take on a very different character.

Another development pointed to this more unsettling possibility. It concerned emerging claims over the Moon by countries that have successfully landed spacecraft on its surface — an exclusive and growing club. What appears as exploration often carries the early language of possession, something history has shown us repeatedly. Beneath the language of scientific progress lies a quieter assertion of presence and, eventually, of ownership. The idea of creating “parking facilities” in space, of positioning oneself closer to future interplanetary journeys, echoes-perhaps uncomfortably-the history of terrestrial colonisation, when empires stretched across continents under the guise of discovery, leaving behind legacies that are still being reckoned with. Placed side by side, these developments reveal the paradox at the heart of human progress. The same curiosity that warms a soldier in a Himalayan outpost can also extend its reach outward, seeking to imprint ownership upon distant celestial bodies. It is not curiosity alone, then, that defines us, but the direction in which we choose to take it — and the restraint, or the lack of it, that accompanies our pursuit. This tendency is not confined to distant frontiers alone; it continues to shape our conduct

much closer to home. One would have thought that the experiences of earlier centuries might have evolved us into a more mature and self-aware race.

Yet, the persistence of sustained conflicts across different parts of the globe in the twenty-first century quietly belies that hope, suggesting that while our technologies have advanced, our instincts perhaps have not kept pace. And yet, it would be too easy-and perhaps too convenient — to conclude that this is all that defines us. The same curiosity that drives us to claim can also compel us to correct, to collaborate, and to care. History, after all, is not merely a record of excesses, but also of gradual learning-of institutions built, of norms negotiated, and of individuals and societies choosing restraint over impulse. If there is hope, it lies not in abandoning our instinct to explore, but in refining it — so that discovery does not inevitably lead to domination, and progress does not come at the cost of our shared humanity.

The writer is founder of Kala - Krazy About Literature And Arts, is an author, speaker, coach, arbitrator, and strategy consultant ; views are personal