This hit me personally, and hard.

I’ve had language around this for a while, especially the difference between being valued for what someone can receive from you and being met with real curiosity.

But your piece touched the nerve of it.

Curiosity, at its best, is not just interest. It is agency-preserving attention. It gives a person room to exist beyond their role, usefulness, function, or the version of them people already understand.

This resonated because it sits very close to something I’ve been trying to name and live through and wrote about also. I hope it echoes too.

theshieldinitiative.sub…

Thank you for writing it.