antigravity

I wonder at what point in this lifetime we lose our sense of wonder. Babies shove things in their mouths, tasting the world. Two-year olds grab anything and everything in sight, touching the world. Teenagers listen to sonorous music until their eardrums have disappeared altoghether, hearing the world. But it are the three-year olds who use all of their senses and reach for that sixth sense of understanding. They probe and inquire, challenging adults out of their complacency. Why should we be at ease in the suburbs? Why don't men fly? Why are spiders "scary" but puppies "cute?" Is it society that forms these prejudices, or are the characteristics inherenty in their chemistry that make spiders scary and puppies cute? Why? From whence? How?

Last summer I realized that I no longer enjoyed myself at waterparks. When I was eleven I stopped writing twisted short-stories based off of the adventures of my Barbie dolls. I think I began to lose my sense of wonder when I stopped using all of my senses...when I stopped creating things with my hands, when I started conceiving things with my mind, and when I stopped playing outside.

I have a deep-seated hatred for complacency...perhaps because I sense its stench in my own being. Routine, living comofortably, shopping at Wal-mart, and then thinking that this is all there is. A life of habit. Why don't we care more about what's happening in Lebanon? Why don't we read books about Hezbollah? Why don't we star-gaze and ponder the heavens?

What if there really are unchartered waters and undiscovered islands yet to be mapped out on the globe? What if Science really isn't the end-all-be-all in explanations for the cosmos?

Living in Wake Forest, North Carolina--away from the university, away from the city, and away from traditional learning--has nourished a desire within me to regain my sense of wonder. To slough off complacency, to know that there IS a larger, dangerous, beautiful and ugly world out there that is waiting for me. Both tangibly and philosophically...I've gotten too comfortable with my own preconceived notions of "what is" and "why it is" and I want to go back and challenge those notions.

Think like a child and don't take for granted that the sun will rise every morning.