October seems like the perfect time to talk about the goblins living in our brains. Not the kind hiding under bridges or lurking in dark forests, but the ones responsible for convincing us that we absolutely need to know why Victorian houses had such strange architectural features, how mushrooms communicate through underground networks, or whether dinosaurs actually had feathers. You know, the questions that send us down internet rabbit holes when we were supposed to be doing something entirely different.

We sometimes refer to this tendency as having a “goblin brain,” that part of ourselves that seems to thrive on novelty, distractions, and the pursuit of whatever happens to capture our attention. One minute we’re researching something practical, and the next we’re watching a documentary about medieval cooking techniques. Somewhere along the way, we’ve forgotten what we originally intended to accomplish. We might laugh about it, or perhaps feel a little guilty about the time we’ve spent wandering through information that seemingly has nothing to do with our responsibilities.

Interestingly, the idea of embracing our inner goblin isn’t entirely new. In 2022, Oxford University Press selected “goblin mode” as its Word of the Year, recognizing a cultural shift toward rejecting unrealistic expectations about productivity, appearance, and how we’re supposed to live our lives. Although goblin mode originally referred more to unapologetic self-indulgence than intellectual curiosity, I think there’s an interesting connection to the way we approach learning. We often feel that our interests should serve some productive purpose, whether that’s advancing our careers, developing a marketable skill, or accomplishing a specific goal. But what happens when we give ourselves permission to learn something simply because it fascinates us?

What if our goblin brains aren’t always the problem? What if some of those seemingly random interests are actually opportunities for learning, creativity, and personal growth?

The Curious Brain

Our brains are constantly processing information, making predictions, and evaluating what deserves our attention. When we encounter something unexpected or recognize a gap in our knowledge, curiosity can motivate us to investigate further. Researchers have found that curiosity can influence how we learn and remember information, particularly when we’re motivated to discover an answer.

In a 2014 study published in Neuron, researchers Matthias Gruber, Bernard Gelman, and Charan Ranganath examined what happens in the brain when people become curious. They found that states of heightened curiosity were associated with activity in brain regions involved in reward and memory, and that participants were better able to remember certain information encountered while curious. Interestingly, this included some incidental information that wasn’t directly related to the question they were trying to answer.

Think about that for a moment. When we’re genuinely curious, the benefits of learning may extend beyond the specific information we originally wanted to discover.

A 2015 review by researchers Celeste Kidd and Benjamin Hayden further explored the psychology and neuroscience of curiosity, examining how information-seeking behavior relates to motivation, learning, and reward. Their work highlights that curiosity isn’t a single, simple process. It involves multiple psychological and neural mechanisms that influence how we seek and engage with information.

This doesn’t mean that every distraction is beneficial or that curiosity automatically guarantees learning. Attention, prior knowledge, emotional state, and the ways we engage with information all influence what we remember. However, the research does suggest that curiosity is more than a pleasant feeling. It can create conditions that support learning.

And yet, somewhere along the way, many of us have come to associate learning with structure, assignments, deadlines, and predetermined outcomes. We think of education as something that happens in classrooms or through formal courses, while our personal interests are relegated to hobbies or activities we pursue when everything else is finished.

Perhaps it’s time to reconsider that distinction.

What If You Created Your Own Curriculum?

Recently, I’ve been thinking about the idea of developing a personal curriculum. Rather than waiting for someone else to decide what we should learn, a personal curriculum allows us to intentionally explore subjects that interest us, develop skills we want to strengthen, and create opportunities to connect new knowledge with what we already know.

This isn’t necessarily the same as creating a list of books to read or signing up for an online course, although both could certainly be part of the process. It’s about approaching our own curiosity with the same intentionality we might bring to a formal educational experience, without necessarily imposing all the restrictions that come with one.

There’s also a connection here to self-determination theory, which examines the psychological conditions that support motivation. Researchers Richard Ryan and Edward Deci (2000) identified autonomy, competence, and relatedness as three fundamental psychological needs associated with motivation and well-being. When we have opportunities to make meaningful choices about what we’re learning, develop our abilities, and connect with others, we create conditions that can support intrinsic motivation. A personal curriculum offers an interesting opportunity to apply these principles by giving us greater ownership over both what we learn and how we approach the learning process.

For example, perhaps you’ve always been fascinated by folklore. You might decide to spend a month exploring how traditional stories reflect cultural beliefs, how those stories change over time, or how they influence modern literature. Your curriculum could include reading a collection of folktales, listening to a podcast, visiting a museum, watching a documentary, or even writing your own reinterpretation of a familiar story.

There doesn’t need to be an exam at the end. You don’t have to earn a certificate or prove that your time was productive. The learning itself can be the goal.

The important difference between a personal curriculum and simply collecting interesting facts is that you’re creating opportunities to engage more deeply with your interests. You’re moving beyond consuming information to asking questions, making connections, and reflecting on what you’ve discovered.

Of course, this is where our goblin brains might have something to contribute.

Giving the Goblin a Map, Not a Cage

One of the challenges with traditional approaches to personal development is that they often assume we need more discipline, more structure, and more clearly defined goals. If we struggle to complete something, the solution is frequently presented as another planner, another productivity technique, or another system for managing our time.

Structure can certainly be helpful, particularly when we’re trying to develop a new skill or accomplish something that requires sustained effort. However, too much structure can also make something we originally found enjoyable begin to feel like another obligation.

A personal curriculum offers an opportunity to find a balance between intentional learning and spontaneous exploration.

I like to think of this as giving our goblin brains a map rather than a cage.

The map provides a general direction. Perhaps this month we’re exploring neuroscience, creative writing, gardening, local history, or whatever subject happens to interest us. We might identify a few questions we’d like to answer or resources we’d like to investigate. But unlike a rigid syllabus, our map allows for detours. If something unexpected captures our attention, we have permission to follow it.

Those detours can be especially valuable when they lead us to connect ideas from different areas of knowledge. Creativity often involves recognizing relationships between concepts that might not initially appear connected. A person interested in gardening might discover something about ecosystems that changes how they think about workplace relationships. Someone researching historical mysteries might develop a new appreciation for archival research, information literacy, or the ways people construct narratives from incomplete evidence.

Not every connection will be profound, and not every rabbit hole will lead to a breakthrough. That’s perfectly fine. Exploration doesn’t need to produce an extraordinary result to be worthwhile.

Building a Personal Curriculum That Works With Your Brain

If the idea of developing your own curriculum sounds appealing, you don’t need to begin by creating an elaborate learning plan. In fact, I’d encourage you not to. The last thing we want is to turn curiosity into another responsibility that eventually ends up on our unfinished to-do lists.

Instead, begin by paying attention to what already captures your interest. What topics do you repeatedly find yourself researching? What questions do you ask that other people might find unusual? What books, articles, podcasts, or conversations leave you wanting to know more?

These interests can become the starting points for your curriculum.

From there, consider three different approaches to learning.

Anchor learning provides some direction. Choose one or two subjects you’d like to explore more deeply over the next month. These don’t need to be connected to your career or any particular long-term goal. They simply need to be things you genuinely want to understand.

Rabbit-hole learning creates space for unexpected discoveries. Give yourself permission to investigate interesting questions that arise along the way, even when they don’t seem directly related to your original topic. You might keep a running list of things you want to explore later, which can help you preserve those ideas without feeling compelled to abandon whatever you’re currently doing.

Connection learning encourages you to do something with what you’ve discovered. This might involve writing a short reflection, sharing an interesting idea with someone, experimenting with a new technique, or identifying connections between subjects. It doesn’t have to result in a finished product. Sometimes simply asking, “What does this remind me of?” can lead to a new way of understanding something.

You might also establish a small amount of time each week specifically for curiosity-driven learning. This could be an hour on a Sunday afternoon, fifteen minutes with your morning coffee, or whatever fits realistically into your life. The goal isn’t to create another schedule you feel obligated to follow. It’s to make room for exploration rather than assuming it will happen only after everything else is done.

When Curiosity Becomes Avoidance

There’s an important distinction we need to make, however. Not every internet rabbit hole represents meaningful curiosity, and not every impulse to pursue something interesting is necessarily helping us learn.

Sometimes we seek novelty because we’re tired, stressed, overwhelmed, or avoiding something difficult. Our ability to regulate attention and behavior is influenced by a variety of factors, including cognitive demands, emotional state, and the rewards we anticipate from different activities. When a task feels especially difficult or unpleasant, something immediately interesting may be much more appealing.

Neuroscientist Adele Diamond (2013) describes executive functions as the cognitive processes that allow us to regulate our attention, resist impulses, hold information in working memory, and adapt our thinking when circumstances change. These abilities are influenced by our physical and emotional states, with stress and insufficient sleep among the factors that can interfere with executive functioning. This is an important reminder that our ability to focus isn’t simply a matter of willpower. Sometimes the difficulty isn’t that we lack motivation or discipline, but that the cognitive resources needed to manage competing demands are under strain.

This is particularly relevant when we consider attention regulation. For some people, including those with ADHD, the challenge isn’t necessarily a lack of interest in accomplishing important tasks. It may involve difficulties initiating activities, regulating attention, or shifting between tasks.

The solution isn’t simply to tell ourselves to try harder.

Instead, we can become more aware of what is driving our behavior. Are we exploring something because we’re genuinely interested, or are we using it to escape another task? Are we feeling energized by what we’re learning, or are we continuing to scroll long after the activity has stopped being enjoyable?

These questions aren’t meant to make us feel guilty. They’re opportunities to better understand our own patterns of attention and motivation.

A personal curriculum can help by giving curiosity an intentional place in our lives. We don’t have to suppress every interesting thought that interrupts our day, but we also don’t have to follow every impulse the moment it appears. Sometimes we can capture an idea and return to it later, when we have the time and mental energy to give it the attention it deserves.

Learning Doesn’t Have to Be Linear

One of the things I find most interesting about personal curricula is how they challenge our assumptions about what learning is supposed to look like. We’re accustomed to thinking about education as a progression from one topic to another, with each lesson building toward a clearly defined outcome. This approach makes sense in many situations, particularly when we’re developing foundational knowledge or learning complex skills.

But lifelong learning doesn’t always follow a straight line.

Sometimes we discover a new interest because of something completely unrelated. Sometimes an idea we’ve encountered years earlier suddenly becomes relevant to a problem we’re trying to solve today. Sometimes the most valuable thing we gain from exploring a subject isn’t the information itself, but the new questions it inspires.

This is also where curiosity intersects with creativity. When we expose ourselves to different perspectives, disciplines, and experiences, we expand the range of ideas available to us when we encounter a challenge. We begin to notice patterns and relationships that might otherwise have gone unnoticed.

A personal curriculum can help us become more intentional about cultivating those opportunities. Rather than limiting our learning to what seems immediately useful, we can make room for subjects that simply intrigue us. We may not know how that knowledge will become relevant later, and perhaps it never will. That doesn’t mean the experience was wasted.

Not everything we learn needs to have a practical application.

Let Your Goblin Brain Learn Something

As we move through October, a month filled with stories of mysterious creatures, strange happenings, and things that go bump in the night, perhaps we can make a little room for the goblins in our own brains.

Instead of immediately dismissing our unusual interests as distractions, we might consider what they’re telling us about the things we want to understand. Instead of creating another rigid self-improvement plan, we might experiment with developing a personal curriculum that provides direction while leaving room for discovery.

And instead of measuring every learning experience by what we’ve accomplished, perhaps we can appreciate the simple pleasure of becoming interested in something new.

Our goblin brains may not always lead us where we originally intended to go. Sometimes they’ll take us down completely unnecessary rabbit holes, introduce us to subjects we never knew existed, or convince us that midnight is the perfect time to investigate an obscure historical mystery.

But with a little intention, those wandering interests can become part of a richer, more personally meaningful approach to lifelong learning.

After all, curiosity doesn’t always need to be tamed. Sometimes it just needs somewhere interesting to go.

What are you going to learn today?

To Find Out More

Curious about curiosity? Whether you’re interested in the neuroscience of learning, the psychology of motivation, or simply finding new ways to explore the world, these resources offer plenty of rabbit holes worth following.

Articles and Research

• States of Curiosity Modulate Hippocampus-Dependent Learning via the Dopaminergic Circuit — Explore how curiosity influences memory and learning, including our ability to remember unexpected information.
• The Psychology and Neuroscience of Curiosity — A closer look at why we seek information and how curiosity connects to motivation, reward, and learning.
• Self-Determination Theory and the Facilitation of Intrinsic Motivation, Social Development, and Well-Being — Discover how autonomy, competence, and connection can support our natural motivation to learn.
• Executive Functions — Learn more about the cognitive processes involved in attention, planning, self-regulation, and flexible thinking.
• Oxford Word of the Year 2022 Is: Goblin Mode — Find out how embracing our inner goblin became a cultural phenomenon.

Books to Explore

• Goblin Mode: How to Get Cozy, Embrace Imperfection, and Thrive in the Muck by McKayla Coyle — A playful exploration of rejecting perfectionism, embracing unconventional interests, and finding comfort in being unapologetically yourself. While it isn’t a neuroscience book, it offers a cultural perspective on the goblin mindset and the freedom to pursue what brings you joy.
• Curious: The Desire to Know and Why Your Future Depends On It by Ian Leslie — Explore why curiosity matters, how it influences learning and creativity, and why we should continue asking questions throughout our lives.
• Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein — Discover why exploring multiple interests and developing knowledge across different disciplines can be valuable, especially when solving complex problems.
• The Art of Noticing by Rob Walker — A collection of creative exercises designed to help us pay attention, rediscover everyday wonders, and notice things we might otherwise overlook.
• How to Be an Explorer of the World by Keri Smith — An interactive invitation to investigate the world around us through observation, experimentation, collecting, and creative exploration. Perfect for anyone who enjoys following unexpected rabbit holes.