Wonder-less
When was the last time you experienced the feeling of true childlike wonder? How about the last time your curiosity and imagination felt truly alive and grounded within you? Can you think of the most recent event that left you slack-jawed, feet stuck to the ground, eyes wide open amazed? Oh, that’s right. You’re an adult. Childlike wonder and beaming happiness caused by the minutiae are embarrassing and not appropriate “at your age”.
No, but really, why have we become such an apparently unhappy, non-expressive species? You would think that natural selection and evolution would have diverged ways that make humans more expressive, happier. Body language, facial expressions, and outward emotions are advantageous in a scientifically speaking way. It allows us to communicate faster, better, and more personally. Maybe that is the issue, the trigger word; personal.
As we lean on technology, money, and capitalism more, we lean on vulnerability, culture, and human connection less. Our new generations are being raised on iPads and short-form content. What used to be toes in the mud is now fingers on a screen, scrolling instead of frolicking. Heart-pounding excitement is decaying into anxiety, younger and younger. People everywhere are losing their sense of reality, their impact, and their true selves being mutated by the constant content pressuring what they should be.
What happened to wonder? What happened to curiosity?
Not to brag or anything, but I can open my body up to the sense of wonder almost every day. Despite a somewhat tumultuous upbringing, my body can still revert back to the times in my childhood that were filled with wonder. My times of wonder were the times I was covered in clay mud, playing in the temporary stream that formed at the bottom of the hill in our soybean field after the summer thunderstorms. They were the times in the winter that I would hide under our pine trees that formed a small recluse under the needled branches and act like I was a pioneer surviving winter alone. Wonder was investigating the different species of insects that grew on our crops every summer, and knowing when a tree was starting to die, just by the bark on one of the branches.
As an adult, it has come to my attention that maybe being outdoors as a child isn’t as simple as it seems, especially now. What used to be a right has now turned into a privilege. Playing outdoors as child has now turned into a privilege that is not taken advantage of, and it is having its consequences.
Without the open space advantage that I had growing up, I can almost certainly say that I would be a completely different person. There would be little concern for my impact on the environment, diminished imagination, and far fewer healthy coping skills. If I was born five years later, my concern would not be winning the game of “who can swing the highest” but likely the game of “who has the biggest Minecraft world”. I am not saying all Gen Alpha kids are incurably addicted to their screens, but I am saying that the increased reliance on technology as a tool has led to decreased time in a state of wonder (generally, of course).
There is much to say about our evolution into more confined living. There are books about the relationship between mental health and children in nature (Last Child in the Woods, Louv). There are studies linking internet use to dissociative traits (Lung & Shu, 2021). There are stories from the youth highlighting their struggles to even get outdoors (dior_ismylife, 2024). It appears to be complicated, but is it?
There are no likes, comments, or shares in the outdoors. There are no eyes of judgment. The trees hardly have anything to say, even on their worst days. The flowers don’t refuse to bloom just because you don’t feel kind that day. The sun doesn’t always shine, but that just means that there are clouds to watch. The mud won’t care if you stomp on it after a particularly stressful day at the office, nor will the wind care what harsh things you whisper under your breath, into the breeze.
When a human is outdoors, they are surrounded by questions, and they are also surrounded by answers. Curiosity comes alive.
References:
Louv, R. (2008). Last child in the woods: Saving our children from nature-deficit disorder (Updated and expanded ed.). Algonquin Books.
Lung, F. W., & Shu, B. C. (2021). The Self-Absorptive Trait of Dissociative Experience and Problematic Internet Use: A National Birth Cohort Study. International journal of environmental research and public health, 18(22), 11848. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182211848
dior_ismylife. (2024, February 14). Since people say Gen Alpha needs to play outside more... [Online forum post]. Reddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/GenZ/comments/1aq2nrl/since_people_say_gen_alpha_needs_to_play_outside/
