Wonder

I took my lunch walk a bit early this morning to beat the afternoon heat and got to thinking about how a child-like wonder at the world around us leads to imagination and discovery.

I would like to think that it goes like this:

Wonder leads to Curiosity which leads to Discovery which leads to Knowledge and Understanding which lead back to the Wonder of it all in a repeating cycle.

We can never know and understand everything and it seems often the more questions we get answered the more we feel compelled to ask. However, in my own life my progression goes less like the circle I just described and more like a line:

Wonder leads to Curiosity which leads to Discovery which leads to Knowledge which becomes Jaded Cynicism.

I think the problem here is not the process and more the garbage that I bring to it. Too often I feel that we trade a child-like wonder and the universe for a hardened, "factual", cynical existence. It doesn't have to be that way. I'd really like to change.