All great discoveries and personal breakthroughs began with those two words.
"Wonder" is a wonderful word. It's impossible to say it aloud without smiling. The English "wonder" traces its roots to the Latin miraculu, which means "anything wonderful, beyond human power…a supernatural event." A miracle, in other words.
You don't need to believe in the supernatural to experience wonder. No less a scientist than Albert Einstein called wonder the source of all art and science. "He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed," he said.
"All philosophy begins with wonder," Socrates said. Aristotle agreed, adding that wonder is the vehicle we use to escape ignorance. Centuries later, Thomas Aquinas linked wonder with its cousin, awe, noting that "poets and philosophers are alike in being big with wonder."
Wonder is a complex emotion that contains elements of surprise, contemplation and joy — and, most important, a heightened state of consciousness.
Wonder is emotional and physical. When we experience wonder, explains psychologist Nico Frijda in his book The Emotions, we undergo a series of physiological changes that "consists of widening of the eyes, brief suspension of breathing, and general loss of muscle tone." This loss of muscle tone causes your mouth to fall open, and may make you shaky on your feet. These responses occur in infants as young as five months old, as well as in cats, dogs and monkeys.
On one level, to wonder is to seek information, in Siri fashion. I wonder where I can find some dark chocolate? On another level, to wonder is to suspend inquiry, at least momentarily, and simply behold. I wonder what it is about good Belgian chocolate, spiked with sea salt and almonds, that makes my brain dance and my heart sing?
When we question, we are constrained by the topic at hand. Any queries that extend beyond that topic are deemed superfluous and therefore discouraged. Think of a lawyer chided by the judge for veering into "immaterial" lines of questioning, or a high school student reprimanded by her teacher for straying "off topic." Wondering, by contrast, is open-ended, expansive. It can't be sequestered.
Wondering is what makes us human. That's been true ever since the first caveman wondered what would happen if he rubbed two sticks together, or dropped a large rock on his head. You never know until you try and you never try until you wonder.
Wonder, as I said, is similar to awe but that emotion comes in response to something much greater than ourselves, and is laced with reverence and fear. Not wonder. We can wonder at the serenity of a sleeping cat as well as the humbling vastness of the Grand Canyon.
We often conflate wonder with curiosity. They are not the same. Wonder is personal in a way curiosity is not. You can be curious dispassionately. You can question dispassionately. You cannot wonder dispassionately. Curiosity is restive, always threatening to chase the next shiny object that pops into view. Not wonder. Wonder is curiosity reclined, feet up, drink in hand. Wonder never chased a shiny object. Wonder never killed a cat.
Curiosity evaporates with knowledge. Not wonder. Like Einstein, we can know and still wonder. Wonder takes time. Like a good meal or good sex, it can't be rushed. That's why Socrates never hurried his conversations. He persevered in his philosophical conversations even when his conversers grew weary and exasperated.
I'd like to say wonder is in its prime, but sadly that is not true. Many of us don't make room for wonder in our lives. We fear that "indulging" in wonder will divert us from more important, "adult" tasks, as if there is anything more important than this most sublime, most human, of emotions.
The good news is that wonder isn't something you're either born with or not, like blond hair or freckles. Wonder is a skill, one we're all capable of learning — or, more accurately, relearning. A sense of wonder is deeply embedded in our humanity. We may mute it, for a while, but we never fully extinguish it. Wonder lies dormant, waiting for us to unmute ourselves, and begin again.