The lost art of wondering

Photo @xavi_cabrera

I was talking to my teenage daughter the other day, and during our conversation, a question came up, as they are prone to do. Neither of us knew the answer, and as naturally as breathing, she pulled out her phone and found out in less than 30 seconds. Our conversation resumed as usual, and that portion of it was resolved and wrapped up with a bow. The conversation continued as if the question was a given and didn't really beckon for a second thought. And maybe it did, maybe it didn’t. But something about that gesture of certainty struck me as quietly revolutionary. 

I can't remember what we were talking about. It doesn't really matter because the question isn’t the point. It’s that quickly, googling anything and everything you're unsure of has become a natural part of our everyday communication. 

Test it out for yourself.

Stand in a group of people, any group, and pose a question they're likely to be curious about but unlikely to be able to answer and then wait. Wait to see how long it takes for someone to pull out their phone. You could probably hold your breath if you wanted to. In most cases, at least one person in the group won’t even need to pull out their phone because they’ll already be holding it in their hand like some ineffable ring of power that demands constant touch and attention. In many cases, this will be several people in the group, if not everyone in the group. Phones in hand, someone will raise it to their face, type for a second, and instantly find the answer you seek. 

The addiction to the phone itself is one thing, but the addiction to the answers it holds has changed the way our brains work. And I say this as a layperson observing the effect out here in the wild every day, not as a scientist with reams of data to back up my claim. It's just an observation, but I suspect that, to some degree, we've lost the ability to wonder. 

Now, for a moment, I have to speak directly to all my fellow "old people" out there—millennials and above, who may actually remember what I'm about to describe. 

Think back to when you were young. I’m talking pre-internet era.

Say you and your friend are outside playing hockey. Your friend says something along the lines of, "I wonder how hockey pucks are made?" Young, you, without a phone in your hand to deliver an instant answer, are forced to think about how hockey pucks are made. You’re forced to wonder. How are hockey pucks made?

The question echoes through the chambers of your memory, trying to rouse from sleep any fragments of what you may have once read, heard, or seen. Any scrap of knowledge that could contribute to the picture of how exactly a hockey puck is made. You may try to recall past conversations with your dad. One of those lost episodes of "How it's Made" that always seemed dull at first glance but inevitably sucked you in with a privileged behind-the-curtain look at the modern manufacture of random consumer goods. You might think about articles or books you'd read or radio or TV segments on the subject of hockey. Your mind would scour the depths of your memory to try and help you answer the question, while simultaneously, your friend's mind was busy doing the same. 

This process could sometimes last for days. Weeks even. 

If you got really curious, if the question had bored a hole into you that nagged you night and day, you might go to the library. Then, of course, you'd have to mentally arm yourself with a series of other questions to help you figure out where the answer to your initial question might lay. It might be in a general book about hockey, a book about the legends or player biographies, or maybe in the encyclopedia. You might learn that the original hockey pucks were made of frozen rounds of cow dung or, later, wooden discs. You might compare notes with your friend if you were both equally afflicted with the desire to know for sure, without a shadow of a doubt, what the hockey puck is made of and what's inside. One of you would ask your dad. Or your grandpa. They might give you an answer, but it might not feel wholly satisfying. Rubber, they’d say. But it leaves you feeling like you have an incomplete picture. What's inside, though? How is it made? Is it two pieces of rubber glued together, is it moulded together from a giant ball of puck dough like a weird little bun, or is it pooped out of some sort of machine? 

The questions left unanswered would haunt you. Leaving you alone for the most part but then popping back into your mind at the oddest times. Then you'd be taken back to the memory of all your previous pondering and, sometimes, not always, be struck with a stroke of inspired genius that could help you answer the question. You'd wait until lunchtime to tell your friend. 

"Let's cut one open," you'd suggest. Your friend, equally curious, would agree. Planning would be involved. Tools and resources needed. Neither of your would want to cut your puck open, so you'd have to get another one. A spare. One that wouldn't be missed. You'd vow to check the gym after lunch. Stealing a hockey puck from the school in the name of scientific curiosity could hardly be considered a crime. 

You'd discover, through trial and error, that cutting into a hockey puck is hard. Scissors would be out of the question. You'd bend one of your mom's kitchen knives and then hastily try to bend it back before she noticed. You'd have to go to the garage. You'd break an Exacto knife. You'd stare at the table saw for a few minutes before dismissing the idea as too noisy and too likely to end up with you losing a finger. You’d consider breaking into the school wood shop when the teacher wasn’t around so you could use the band saw. Your friend would suggest hammering into it to see if it would crack open like a coconut. You’d dismiss the idea as absurd but try it anyway. You’d eventually grab a small saw from off the wall. But how to hold it? It would need to be secured in a vice. You’d place the puck in a vice and get to work. 

After a few minutes of sawing, you'd feel like you were getting nowhere and ask your friend to take over. This would go on for quite some time until you finally broke through the cut you'd made down the middle, and one half fell to the floor. 

Disappointment would ensue.

All of that to find out that a puck is solid all the way through. There is nothing really inside a hockey puck except more puck. It would feel anticlimactic, but that's not really the point. It was the finding out that was the fun part all along. Your thirst for knowing would be quenched. Then you might stop to wonder why you’d never considered that the puck was solid.

It's the drive of wonder that leads you on an adventure, to explore, to investigate, to think hard about something, and then hardly think of it at all until obsession grabs hold and you have no other choice but to know. And wondering is an unfolding of knowing that takes place entirely on your own terms. You take ownership of the entire process from start to finish. You come up against problems and find solutions. Sometimes, they're not the most elegant solutions, but they're solutions nonetheless. And that interrogation of some small aspect of your every day life makes you better. It primes you for the next act of discovery over and over again. 

This is how you become a "fuck around and find out" person. As unafraid of not knowing as you are of finding out. 

And that's just... gone... 

For the most part, anyway, there are always exceptions.

But truly, no one really has to wonder about much of anything anymore. Not anyone with an internet connection, anyway. It will only get worse as AI gets better and better at doing all of our pondering for us.

And that is having an impact. Over the years, I've watched my own kids take on a blasé attitude towards any sort of discovery play. "Like... why?" This is the usual response. They can just look it up. They can watch a video on TikTok or YouTube and see the mystery of their world solved instantly. All their questions, answered. Nothing to wonder about at all. 

But it isn't just about the convenience of accessing information. There's a whole mental process here that's being erased. And what that's doing to kids and how it's changing their brains... well, I can't help but wonder.