By T.J. Ray

Columnist

At odd moments of the day I wonder about wonder.  Lest you think me round the bend for that, consider that I am not claiming any authority on the subject as does one fellow who lauds himself as the world’s leading wonder authority.  

I wonder how he achieved that lofty distinction.  Are there schools that teach wonder?  It’s clear that many schools don’t incubate any wonder at all in their students.  Evidently this guy travels a lot and produces long lists of exotic wonders.  

On his website, Hillman Wonders of the World, may be found not just the Seven Natural Wonders of the World but a list of the 100 Wonders of the World.  If that doesn’t satisfy you, he also iterates the top 1000.  One of his Wonders is the Las Vegas Strip at Night.

A while back a friend told me he now understood what motivated Steve Jobs to name things as his company did — iPad, iPhone, iMac.  After reading Leonard Read’s intriguing essay “I, Pencil,” I agree with him.  Take a few minutes and read Read.  You might want to have a pencil in hand as you do so.  You may find that a simple yellow Monarch #2 is a wonderful creation.

Perhaps some wonder has an answer.  For instance, the existence of the ancient sea creature, the kraken, may be proved by the markings on bone of the remains of nine 45-foot ichthyosaurs during the Triassic period, 248 to 206 million years ago.  

Another wonder, Sunoco, Citgo, British Petroleum and other companies can drill, recover, refine and transport 1 oz. of crude oil for around a penny and a half while the post office needs 42 cents to get a letter across a street.  Note that it’s the Post Office that is sinking in red ink, not the oil companies.  

Poor old stone-deaf Ludwig von Beethoven could hear music in his head long after deafness muted the world for him.  Makes one wonder, doesn’t it?

The word “wonder” gets spoken so often that I thought I should look it up to remind myself what folks were talking about.  Most dictionaries says something like this:  Something strange and surprising; a cause of surprise, astonishment, or admiration.   The verb that spins off the noun signals speculative curiosity.  

Someone might say, “That  building is a wonder” or “I wonder how hummingbirds make their whirring sound.”   You see, of course, that a list of things that might cause wonder could well tabulate a hundred, a thousand, a million claims.

Can you imagine the wonder of someone seeing electric lighting for the first time?  If you can, you will appreciate how the good folks in Oxford felt as they read the Oxford Globe on September 6, 1900: “The election for electric lights last Saturday resulted in almost a solid vote in favor of issuing bonds for $5000 to pay for putting in the lights.”  Wow!

Quite possibly life becomes humdrum about the same time we lose our sense of wonder.  Maybe at that point in time life becomes less productive.  Think of the old things around you that you see with fresh eyes and appreciation after you’ve been away for a while.  Remember the joy of running into someone dear whom you haven’t seen in years.  Those Eureka moments brighten your life.

Sadly, the speed of life today leaves us little time to wonder.  And the natural wonders of the world have been supplanted by the latest technological gizmos.  Sadder still, we no longer challenge kids to speculate.  They’re too busy texting Google to find what someone else found before them. 

As G. K. Chesterton observed,  “We are perishing for want of wonder, not for want of wonders.”