Some years ago I was driving to Ottawa and passing the time listening to a US Christian evangelist. Since I was a boy I have enjoyed the way evangelists mesmerize us with their ability to weave observations into truths and connect these to the bible. This particular speaker was great, and in two hours had convincingly explained war, peace, commercialism, love, hate, family breakdown, fear - you name it. It was all very nicely related to specific passages of the bible. Then I had my epiphany. We just like to figure stuff out!
There was no difference between this evangelist and Einstein, who was driven to figure stuff out based on the principles of math and physics, or Bill Gates figuring out technology within capitalism and western industrial society. We are all just figuring stuff out, because that's what humans do. A friend sent me a paper once that showed how the brain rewards us with an opiate when we solve a problem (try it, solve a sudoku problem and feel the sensation of happiness), and our brain creates anxiety when we fail (the "itch" noted by Osho in Ian's blog).
This let me step back from taking all this figure-it-out stuff too seriously - we are simply doing what nature programmed us to do.
