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Wonder is just a word and this column has no sponsors (yet; Bazooka Gum, feel free to reach out.) The Old English ‘wundor’ leads us to call sensational, spectacular and unbelievable moments or things ‘a wonder,’ yet the feeling elicited by witnessing a wonder came to fall under the same word in Middle English — I feel wonder in the presence of a wonder. However, wonder fell into parlance as a verb as well, capturing our curiosity as well as our astonishment.
I noticed an interesting trend in the Google Books archives: Wonder as a noun and as a verb have reversed places in frequency of use since 1800, with the latter eclipsing the former right at the outside of World War I. Once the rapid process of modernization began, it appears that the world began to lose its wonder. We no longer marvel as often as we inquire, seeking the truth over accepting the humility of amazement.
People, myself included, often feel as if they’re losing their child-like sense of wonder. Every Christmas grows less wondrous than the one before, every bird or bug or leaf is a wonder no more. Everything mysterious is not a wonder. When I was younger, I used to ask: “How does this work?” incessantly. There was so much to know, and it was all a wonder. Now, I know I can’t know everything, thus I rarely stop to wonder.
When I still stop to inquire, I efface myself. I admit there are things beyond my conception and I reach out to another, or I interrogate myself. When I catch those rare moments of wonder — witnessing the yellow marbled ruins of Ephesus or spying a flurry of snow illuminated by the streetlight outside my dorm — I withdraw. When I wonder, I acknowledge myself and the limits of my self. I make myself small and the world great.
This smallness may seem to produce despair. If I am small, if I am human, if my self is truly frail, then why should I strive? However, I find that wonder still animates me. Although it makes me small, wonder cannot exist without me. The world can do miracles, yet they fall to nothing if we are not here and we cannot wonder at them. Every item featured in this column has been a wonder: handshakes, dreams, desire paths, code-switching, cowardice, bread, Halloween, nostalgia, autumn leaves, eyes, Sunday comics. Quirks of the world have been granted meaning, potency and value through our voices and actions. Over and over, we too can work wonders.
Alone, wonders no doubt lay out of reach — how could I marvel at something that I wrought? As a human, I can lay claim to wonders. I shake hands, I eat bread, I talk incessantly about things of relatively little consequence to a very small number of people who listen about them. I am small, so I know there is something big, and I can try to be big.
If, by wondering, I contribute to the wonder, then I am partly creator, or parent. What parent does not love their child? Therefore, I have no choice but to love what I wonder about, for every wonder is a labor of love. If wonders really lie in the mundane, then I must love the mundane. I must love the big world that I’m privileged to be small in. Of course, I’m wonderful, so I love myself. And, obviously, I love the Features editors at the Daily and all my wonderful readers this semester!
