Albert Knox explains to Sophie how we are all born with a natural skill, the skill to wonder. He addresses this as the Faculty of Wonder. The ability to question anything and everything around us, the ability to ask how and why things are the way they are. He describes how babies "reach out in curiousity" to everything they encounter as everything is new to them. He says the power to wonder diminishes as time passes by because people have gotten use to living life the way it is, they believe that everything is fine as it is. They no longer have the curiousity to ask why and how something is, even if they don't have an answer. I believe this is because they have accepted life the way it is, and have learned to live with it. As they grow, they learn to establish what's right from wrong. True the important questions of life such as "why are we here?" and "is there a life after death?" will always remain within us, but it no longer concerns adults and their lives.
Albert Knox asks Sophie, "What is the most important thing in life?", explaining how everyone have basic needs, and how the most important thing in life is what we value most when we are asked that question. I believe that the "most important" thing in life varies depending on the situation, there is NO definate answer, nor will there ever be one.
He also relates how philososphers and babies share the common Faculty of Wonder, how philosophers do not "get use" to the ways of living, and how they will never see the world as a "reasonable" place, how everything must have a reason behind it.
I myself find these statements true. As we grow up, we lose the skill to wonder. We learn to focus in the present rather than wonder about the future. This is because wondering about the future will not affect us in any way, the future is unknown, therefore there is really no point of wondering about it. Unless these questions are brought up in a casual conversation, this topic will never be brought up, will never be talked about. I like to question how my day went, and I ask how could have I changed to make it better? or why did my day go the way it is? how could it have been any different?. Then when I start to question that, I question life. I question our existance, why we live, how we got here and why there is life and death. All these questions can never be answered. Life is a big mystery, we slowly learn to adapt to life, learn to live with it and eventually live life as it is.
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3 comments:
Congrats Kevin on the promptness of your blog posting! You have some interesting ideas that I'd like to hear more about. You imply that 'wondering' has little worth if it doesn't have a direct function or end product (e.g. we live in the present, so wondering about the future serves little purpose). If a question cannot be answered does that then mean that it shouldn't be asked?
You said that questions such as "why are we here?" and "is there a life after death?" no longer concerns adults and their lives.
I actually think adults are more concerned about these questions than children are. The older you are, the closer you are to death. This is probably why a lot of people take up religion in the later years of their life, rather than starting off early.
I do not think that a human being can ever lose the ability to wonder , we may as you said learn to only focus on the present but even if we are adults we would still wonder. There would be times in life when there is a stimulus that would make you wonder about your life, for example reading this book. I am sure that there are many adults that read this book, once people read this book it is often they would start questioning their lives. Therefore I do not think that as you grow older you will lose the ability to wonder, in fact you can never lose the ability to wonder about the world. Humans merely don't have time to, or they dont want to.
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