October the Fourteenth Post

Does a Link Exist Between Distraction and Following Curiosity?

"I find it necessary to consult every one a little in his turn; and therefore must beg pardon for going on a little further in the same way: For which cause, right glad I am, that I have begun the history of myself in the way I have done; and that I am able to go on tracing every thing in it, as Horace says, ab Ovo. . . . To such, however, as do not choose to go so far back into these things, I can give no better advice, than that they skip over the remaining part of this Chapter; for I declare beforehand, 'tis wrote only for the curious and inquisitive." -- Tristam Shandy, page 4

"Cavendish never really fitted into polite society. In Worlds Olio (1655), a broadly philosophical work, she explored a wide-ranging number of topics, but a tendency to veer off at bizarre tangents clouded her message. . . .  Like the Duchess of Newcastle, Tryon found it hard to stay focused in his writing, and his asides sometimes confuse his arguments." -- Cockayne, "The City in a Hubbub," pages 3 and 4

The "City in a Hubbub" piece was a particularly interesting read, focusing on the viewpoints of others to gain a sense of life from a specific period. The piece exhibited thirteen amusing people of note, all complete with entertaining biographies. One in particular stuck out to me, as she has been referenced already in class: Margaret Cavendish. She wrote a brilliant poem that we talked about in class, yet this description of her alluded to a more scattered author than I would have supposed from that work. This tendency to "veer off at bizarre tangents" reminded me of how Sterne began Shandy's narration in Tristam Shandy, and how confused I was myself at the narrative. This seemed like a point of pride to Shandy, and a good thing: to follow each line of inquiry was written for "the curious and inquisitive." From earlier discussions and investigations into the origin of the word "curious," this was especially striking. Had the transition already occurred, then, from a otherworldly thing to a noble quest for knowledge? Had it shaken its negative connotation? Or was this suggesting that to be distracted was to be curious and thus unnatural?
I'm curious to follow this line of inquiry, and to see how exactly distraction fit in with being curious, if a link exists at all. And how does attention, our other state of mind for this week, factor in? Is being attentive to particular things like being curious? And how dimensional are these states? It seems to me that to be singularly attentive to something is like being obsessed, and as the previous weeks suggest, that also alludes to being absorbed by the thought of something. Everything is connected.