May 18, 2009 0
Conversation: The Post-Wonderment Age
- Image by Seven Morris via Flickr
While I was in New York recently I had the opportunity to hang out with my friend Ben. Ben works as an arborist for the city of Brooklyn and is currently working to negotiate sidewalk alterations that will be helpful to older trees which are starting to strain against their concrete boundary. It’s pretty cool stuff. But that’s not what I want to share with you about our conversation.
Ben, who besides speaking for the trees isn’t a Luddite or anything, referred to our current technological existence as the post-wonderment age. It used to be, when you’d be out walking and consider seeing a movie or a band or whatever you’d say something like “I wonder what’s playing at the movie theater.” Now, instead of wondering, we just whip out our post-wonderment devices and beam the information in. This observation got me thinking about how easy it is to access information today (even with my non-phone post-wonderment device: an iPod Touch).
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true 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. –Albert Einstein
In the absence of knowing something, we imagine multiple realities and possibilities. We can make plans based on whichever variations of these possibilities seem most interesting to us, creating multiple futures. When we lack the time and space to actively wonder about something, I wonder what happens to our ability to innovate and generate new things.
