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Nick Cave On Humility And Curiosity
how to persevere when it all feels pointless
Matt Zeigler
January 28, 2025
Since 2018, Nick Cave has been running one of the most generously selfishly corners of the internet - a question-answering blog where fans, strangers, and digital wanderers can ask him anything. Unlike the usual celebrity Q&As/AMAs, where responses often feel like carefully curated PR exercises, Cave's answers unfold into something more raw and profound than you’d expect.
A quote from one of his letters recently got caught in the web of social media, but like most viral wisdom, the snippet alone was short on crucial context. It was all punchline and no setup, or all resolution without the tension-building progression.
The quote was missing the question that sparked it. You need to see this question with his answer because it sets the stage for what comes next. And, that’s saying a lot for a question that otherwise wants to stay lodged in a person’s throat:
I am 20, high school graduant, in my gap-year and I find it pointless to pursue anything in this bizarre and temporary world that is so much against my values in every way possible. I believe I am speaking for a generation here. I am asking with the biggest admiration, what would you do in my/our situation?
The world is indeed a scary place, and it probably won't get less scary. But Cave's response offers something more useful than false comfort - he hands us two practical tools for survival in a world that often feels like it's running on madness: humility and curiosity.
One one hand, they’re skeleton keys for dark times with too many confusing hallways, all ending in intimidatingly locked doors. And on the other hand, they’re flashlights, or maybe even torches - because they brighten up the darkness around them to chase away the shadows and allow us to explore with some semblance of confidence.
This is how Cave puts it:
The first is humility. Humility amounts to an understanding that the world is not divided into good and bad people, but rather it is made up of all manner of individuals, each broken in their own way, each caught up in the common human struggle and each having the capacity to do both terrible and beautiful things. If we truly comprehend and acknowledge that we are all imperfect creatures, we find that we become more tolerant and accepting of others’ shortcomings and the world appears less dissonant, less isolating, less threatening.
The other quality is curiosity. If we look with curiosity at people who do not share our values, they become interesting rather than threatening. As I’ve grown older I’ve learnt that the world and the people in it are surprisingly interesting, and that the more you look and listen, the more interesting they become. Cultivating a questioning mind, of which conversation is the chief instrument, enriches our relationship with the world. Having a conversation with someone I may disagree with is, I have come to find, a great, life embracing pleasure.
Here's what strikes me most about Cave's wisdom: instead of trying to fix the world's brokenness, he suggests we start by accepting it - and ourselves - as gloriously imperfect works in progress. Even if the world feels overwhelming and trying feels pointless, we aren't alone in that feeling.
Art has always been good at this - at taking those universal feelings of disconnect and weaving them into something shareable. Making art is one way to cast these feelings into the world; consuming it is another. And sometimes, like El did, simply reaching out to an artist who speaks to you can create its own kind of healing connection.
Stay humble, stay curious, and while you might not save THE world, you're likely to find YOUR world is worth saving yourself for. Sometimes that's enough to keep the light on for another day.
Do spend some time exploring The Red Hand Files, you won’t regret it.