I Miss Wondering

Honestly,

I cannot remember the last time I sat with a question for very long.

I wonder about something, reach for my phone, and—in approximately three seconds—I know the answer.

What was that actor’s name?

How far away is Iceland?

Why do dogs turn around before lying down?

Is this plant dying, or is it simply dramatic?

There it is.

Answered.

I love having information at my fingertips. It helps me learn, solve problems, make decisions, and settle arguments I was almost certainly going to win anyway.

But I think it has also taken something from me.

I do not wonder as much as I used to.

When I was younger, my dad woke me during a camping trip near Lake Superior.

The northern lights were moving across the sky, and he wanted me to see them.

He did not wake me because there was somewhere we needed to be.

There was no task to complete.

No lesson to study.

No photograph we needed to capture.

There was simply something beautiful happening above us, and he believed it was worth getting out of bed to witness.

I still remember standing there with him, looking up at their beauty and strength.

The sky seemed enormous.

Lake Superior seemed endless.

And the lights were doing something I could not fully understand.

We just watched.

Today, my phone could tell me exactly what was happening.

Charged particles.

Earth’s magnetic field.

Gases in the atmosphere.

Different colors produced at different altitudes.

It could give me the aurora forecast, cloud coverage, viewing probability, the best direction to face, and probably a reminder to bring a jacket.

That information is useful.

But it is not the same as being awakened by your dad because the sky is doing something extraordinary.

Knowing how something happens does not explain what it feels like to witness it.

That is the part I miss.

Wonder is not simply the absence of information.

It is the feeling that something is bigger than the answer.

It is curiosity without an immediate demand for resolution.

It is giving an experience enough room to surprise us before we name it, explain it, photograph it, post it, and move on.

We have become very good at finding answers.

I am not sure we have become equally good at looking up.

Sometimes I think we treat every unanswered question like a tiny emergency.

Quick. Find the answer.

Make sense of it.

Put it in the correct mental folder.

Then move along because there are seventeen other things waiting for us.

But not every question is a problem waiting to be solved.

Some questions are invitations.

What might happen?

Why did that affect me so deeply?

What else could be true?

What am I noticing that I do not understand yet?

Those questions do not always need an immediate answer.

Sometimes they need company.

Sometimes they need a quiet walk, a conversation with someone we trust, or enough time for the first obvious answer to move aside.

And some things deserve to be experienced before they are explained.

Five Small Ways to Leave Room for Wonder

1. Wait before searching. When a harmless question occurs to you, give yourself a few minutes to think, guess, or ask someone else before reaching for your phone.
2. Look a little longer. Watch the sky, a storm, a child playing, or an ordinary moment without immediately trying to capture it.
3. Ask a question without rushing to answer it. Let curiosity begin a conversation instead of ending one with a search result.
4. Notice what still amazes you. Familiarity can make remarkable things feel ordinary. What have you stopped seeing because it is always there?
5. Invite someone else to witness it. Wonder becomes something different when we turn to another person and say, “You need to see this.”

I do not want to give up the information available to me.

Let’s not get carried away. I still need to know whether the plant is dying.

I would simply like to stop treating every unanswered question as something that must be handled immediately.

Maybe wonder needs a little time.

A little uncertainty.

A little space between the question and the answer.

I understand more about the northern lights now than I did on that camping trip.

But the fact I remember most clearly is not how they were made.

It is that my dad woke me up.

He understood something I am trying to remember:

There are moments when the most important thing we can do is stop, look up, and wonder together.