Burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge. In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again. — Alice in Wonderland
When is a rabbit hole an intellectual method? When is it merely an excuse not to finish the work at hand?
My common explanation for a tendency to succumb to the temptations of chasing elusive rabbits down holes is that my professional fields are so diverse that pretty much any topic is potentially relevant to something I need to work on. The tendency also reflects eclectic interests and an overdose of curiosity. An article on Malawi’s fertilizer prices? Surely that’s likely to yield an insight on food security. A project to increase neonatal resuscitation? Naturally that offers insight on a religious community’s selection of priorities. A French eighteenth-century women’s religious order? Will help in understanding contemporary challenges for Guinea where Catholic sisters play small but interesting roles. And debates about why the Khmer Rouge were able to exercise so much horrible power in Cambodia? Essential to understanding contemporary Indochinese social and political affairs. Another explanation I invoke is that my knowledge and memories are so full of gaps that need repair or filling in.
The list of excuses goes on and on. Procrastination is all too often at work, of course: an unwillingness to focus on tasks that simply must be done. And I fear sometimes that an idleness of mind might be at work. But for now I’m focused on reasons. In the play Ross (1960, by Terence Rattigan), Lawrence (of Arabia fame) prefers to present reasons, not excuses, as an explanation for his behavior that does not seek to excuse him from responsibility. A challenge is to distinguish is productive curiosity from dilettantish behavior.
So, reasons. Distractions can lead to promising ideas and challenging insights, as well as, like Alice’s experience, simply adventure and fascination. There’s also the quirky side of a mind that seems prone to infinite curiosity. But as we focus more and more on interconnections among so many topics, and the vital need for efforts that cross interdisciplinary boundaries, many unlikely and unexplored rabbit holes beckon. An especially promising “reason” for pursuing less than obvious threads is that practical examples help in translating abstract concepts and words into practice and thus help to make a concept more meaningful. It might even help establish a foundation for understanding and dialogue as it sparks interest or dispels a partly formed preconception. In short, pursuing the rabbits can reveal unexpected connections across disciplines, concrete examples that test or illuminate abstractions, and generate stories that can persuade people and prompt action.
My current focus (within the broad field of international development) is the roles that religious institutions and beliefs can and do play, with an underlying premise that most current approaches to the topic are quite un-strategic. Many highly informed people are skeptical that the topic deserves priority focus, amidst the overwhelming list of problems that face us (wars, hunger, nuclear destruction, climate change, corruption, polarization, and so on). Religious influence rarely sits in one clearly labeled field; it emerges through health systems, education, humanitarian response, social norms, local histories, and political relationships. Specific, robust examples can persuade and fire imaginations. With so much misinformation and countless preconceptions at work, data helps but so do specific examples, with a human face and grounding in a relevant situation. Stories can highlight complex questions and help in the vital task of translating a broad idea that can seem abstract into something that can be acted on Monday morning. In work on religion and international development, many rabbit holes lead to where the best evidence is found.
But rabbit holes, as Alice discovered, take one on unpredictable paths: “The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down a very deep well.”
The challenge? Keep the rabbit hole spirit, try for self-awareness, and be selective, with some effort to keep an eye on the way out before tumbling too far down. The aim, then, is neither to resist every rabbit hole nor to tumble indiscriminately into each one. It is to preserve the curiosity that sends us exploring, while retaining enough discipline to know why we entered—and when it is time to climb out.
