Seven Wonders

Sometimes making sense of everything can give you a headache, wouldn’t you agree? So here’s the thing, why do we feel we have to have an explanation for everything? Whatever happened to the delight of wonderment? My friend Lucas, his old flat-mate Bec and I pondered this very thing over dinner one night.

Okay, so that was a Friday night, I’m a slow thinker, my reflective reflexes are still yawning from another late night/early morning. Nevertheless, it’s a valid question. Why do some of us feel the need to always know the answers? Do you know someone like that? Lucas and Bec did which is the reason we were pontificating the point.

Personally I feel there is something rather narky about someone who insists on hogging a dinner party conversation with obscure facts or just lots of them. Well, maybe not if there was something remotely interesting about them. Maybe (for me) it’s not even that the facts are obscure. Maybe what’s so narky is the manner and intonation by which that person conveys these facts.

I rather dislike a know-all. They’re like a bitter pill that’s a little hard to swallow; you end up choking on it as it goes down. However, having said that, there are gifted communicators, people on whose words you hang because they have a way of sharing information that feels and is inclusive of the audience rather than condescendingly postured as being apart from it. I like the former kind better.

So why is wonderment to be encouraged? Well, I think it ought to be because it goes to the delight of a person’s personal discovery of something. Sure, knowing is good, great even, but wonderment is temporal, like taking a seat in the park before continuing on in your journey. It lets you appreciate the view from the park bench, let’s you take a breather for all the right reasons. I think it’s a place we ought to enjoy for enjoyment’s sake. What do you think?