A few years ago I ran across a blog written by Scott Young. He said, "There are essentially two different modes of thought you can apply when deciding what to do: purpose and curiosity. Acting through purpose means accomplishing a project because you have a known outcome."

On the other hand, Scott proposed that curiosity is taking on an activity because the result is uncertain. While acting from purpose comes from the need to achieve something known, curiosity drives us to learn something new.