How wandering around in wonder may actually be a superpower
"Not all those who wander are lost." —J.R.R. Tolkein
Wonder is where your best ideas live.
This is why good ideas arrive in the shower and the other marginal moments of your day. This is why creativity is found beyond the edge of what you already do or know.
And yet the pressure for wonder-bypassing can be intense. It’s what the songwriter Tom Waits describes:
"We have a deficit of wonder. When I ask people questions now, they get out their phone. I say, noooo! I don't want to know the answer. I just wanna wonder about it awhile."
—Tom Waits
The rush to get out the phone, to know the answer, to find the quick fix—this is what creates the ping pong between:
Not Knowing—>Googling
New Problem—>Old Solution
Craving—>Reward
Email Received —>Email Sent
Action—>Reaction
This ping ponging between action and reaction is what describes the experience of the typical work day.
It’s the thing that many of our work environments reward: the instinct toward snap judgments, closing on answers quickly, making efficiency king.
It’s in the language that’s so embedded within bizpeak:
hey richard,
let’s close the gap
while closing the loop
by landing the plane
and circling back by EOD,
so we can put a pin in it,
ok?
But where does all of the short circuited curiosity and forced certainty leave us? With a deficit of wonder.
Staying with the bizpeak for a moment—
sometimes you need to get lost in the weeds,
and have multiple balls in the air,
to not put a pin in it or parking lot it
or ramp up or triple down or ever
use bizspeak again,
ok?
Sometimes you need to wonder about it awhile.
***
In the language of design, sometimes you need to
diverge (create choices)
before you
converge (make choices).
It’s in the space between Divergence and Convergence, where Emergence—the aha, the breakthrough, the light bulb moment—lives.
Or to put it another way, in the well known words of Viktor Frankl:
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
—Viktor Frankl
In this space lies our growth and our freedom. This includes the power to choose and the possibility to create.
Lengthening the line is the difference between
reacting or thinking,
answering or wondering,
more of the same or your best idea yet.
The question then becomes, how can I lengthen the line?
How do I cultivate the space for wonder—to crack it open, and even hold it open, a bit longer?
***
Can I share one of my best practices for lengthening the line? Reading poetry.
As Lucile Clifton writes, “Poems come out of wonder, not out of knowing.”
Poems also lead us into wonder.
Poems help us slow down.
Poems invite us to looks closer, to really notice.
And in the slowing and noticing, we begin to lengthen the line, and are led into an encounter with the world.
I’d like to share an old poem of mine that came out of an experience of lengthening the line.
An Inventory of No Small Wonders and Peculiar Graces
I don’t deserve friends in my living room
late at night laughing, or lake swimming
in August, or the smell of onions frying
in a pan.
I make no rightful claim to clean socks,
or raspberries or more than one shade of
green, and I’ve done little to merit bicycle riding
or hearing the words I forgive you.
I’ve never deserved legs and I cannot justify
tasting thai coconut curries. I am not entitled to
serotonin and fresh towels, even breathing in
after it rains.
My existence does not warrant Arbutus trees,
or airplane travel, and I was never owed Miles
Davis. I have no right to Zebras—I honestly
never had them coming.
I don’t deserve lying naked beside a woman
and feeling no shame,
and I cannot earn the morning, or this light
on the leaves.
—Lance Odegard
I had been on a writing retreat in a little A-frame cabin on Galiano Island (one of the gulf islands in the Salish Sea near Vancouver). Up against a deadline, I had been working on a number of poems trying to get them ready for a collection. Despite serious effort, the last number of days held modest levels of progress and rising levels of disappointment. I had hoped for more.
After cleaning the cabin and packing the car, I decided to go for a short hike before catching the ferry home. As I walked along the oceanside path, I replayed in my mind how the last few days had gone. The rehearsal of disappointments was interrupted first by the ocean air. And then by Arbutus trees. (Have you seen how these trees peal their paper skin? Have you seen how their crooked, slender bodies rise out of rock? Have you felt how cool they are to the touch?).
And then by moss. I came upon a flat ledge—an 8’ by 4’ rock slab, carved into the cliff above the ocean. From the path, there were three perfect stairs descending onto the ledge. It looked like one of those sunken living rooms from the 70s. And all of it, the entire ledge, was covered in wall to wall moss. This was moss with loft. This was moss with serious R-value. This was moss in the most preposterous green.
I had just found a place to rest my striving and to sink into stillness. So I sat down, my back against the cool rock, my legs suspended by moss pillows.
Looking out across the ocean, the light was grabbing every contour of wave. The horizon line that stretched across my view, mirrored the line that was lengthening inside of me.
It was the first time all week where I wasn’t trying to make something happen.
Slowly, I allowed myself to be released from the urgency for productivity. I let myself become simple. I slowly dropped down from being perched up in my mind, to be submerged into the senses. Horizon. Salt. Waves. Sunlight. Moss. Rock. Bark.
It was a moment of quiet wonder, mixed with gratitude. How does this place exist? How did I just stumble on the finest moss covered front row ocean theatre seats? Who am I to get to be here and see any of this?
And then the poem arrived. A series of images and experiences began collecting in my imagination and I quickly began capturing them in my notebook. In time, I got up and walked back to the car with a poem that represented some of the best work accomplished on that trip. It was my own catalogue of wonders. And it happened through wonder.
Cultivating a space for wonder doesn’t have to look like hikes along gulf islands and writing poems.
In fact, a story like this might unintentionally reinforce the belief that wonder can only happen in these kinds of environments. It’s almost too serene. But what about the other moments—the especially hectic and pressure filled ones where most of our days are spent? How might we cultivate wonder there?
This is a good question to stay with. What might be needed for you to experiment toward your own working answer?
Growing a capacity for wonder can look like:
+ letting your imagination off the leash
+ going for a walk (without a podcast)
+ asking more and telling less
+ taking a day off to only accomplish one thing (joy)
+ getting near/in the ocean
+ asking kids for their opinions
+ putting the phone away at 6pm
+ reading more fiction
+ praying
+ talking to strangers
+ becoming a full time noticer of blooms and babies
+ watching Connor McDavid highlights
+ letting the thing unfold (vs. forcing it to)
+ listening to more instrumental music
+ getting bored enough to pull out the paints
+ browsing the bookstore to inhale ideas even if you don’t buy any of them
+ skiing fresh powder
+ scheduling an appointment with moss
The increasingly rare ability to wander around in wonder for awhile, is a superpower.
Everything in your adult world is organized against it. The algorithm, the task list, the internalized capitalism.
Therefore active resistance is required to disrupt the cult of productivity with a serious commitment to your own joy.
Which makes growing the capacity for wonder one of the most important, high value activities you can invest in.
***
Friends, thanks for reading!
I’d love to know what helps you wander around in wonder for awhile. What are the practices that you’ve found that enable you to lengthen the line between Action—Reaction?
PRACTICES TO KEEP GOING
What if instead of trying more of the same, you tried more space for wandering around in wonder?
Retreats on an island are nice, and, also rare. What’s one way you can design your day to include a lengthening of the line moment?
If you were to bring a serious commitment to your own joy, what would you need to subtract? What would you want to add to your life?