Why Wonder?
When I got the idea for this blog, I was worried all the good domain names would be taken. Of course I could have used my surname with its surplus of prickly consonants - I didn't learn to spell it till I was ten years old - to create a very unique though hard to remember site name. But I decided against that; I wanted a name that expressed the spirit of what I wished to write about here.
At first I thought about using a variation on Einstein's famous quote: "I am a little piece of nature." Love of Nature, of that big green OUT THERE, is my inspiration, along with the realization that we are inextricably OF this world, from the salt in our tears to the amazing biome of microorganisms in our gut that keeps us alive. These, for me, are rich sources of questions and wonder. Then, as I was going through some notes I had recently made while reading Albert Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus, I was moved by an image Camus conjures in his conclusion:
Sisyphus realizes the rock he rolls up the mountain each day with his "earth-clotted hands" is his inescapable fate and...
" ...fate [is] a human matter, which must be settled among men.
All Sisyphus' silent joy is contained therein. His fate belongs to him. His rock is his thing. Likewise, the absurd man, when he contemplates his torment, silences all the idols. In the universe suddenly restored to its silence, the myriad wondering little voices of the earth rise up. Unconscious, secret calls, invitations from all the faces, they are the necessary reverse and price of victory."
The phrase "...the myriad wondering little voices of earth..." caught my heart. We are the animal that wonders, that asks why. This is as much an expression of our essential nature as the chickadee calls I hear outside my window as I write this are an expression of theirs.
Besides, the Einstein quote is already taken by someone on Blogspot.
Camus goes on:
"There is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night. The absurd man says yes and his effort will henceforth be unceasing."
There is a downside to having silenced "all the idols." Without philosophies or belief systems that purport to provide all the answers, we are left with just our "earth-clotted hands" and meagre human understanding. But we can't live on science or pure logic alone, so we are the animal that writes poetry, paints, dances, makes music, tells stories around campfires, builds unnecessarily elaborate buildings, and on and on. This aspect of our nature is what moves me to write - my way of wondering and exploring "the universe suddenly restored to its silence."
And like the little fox that left its footprints in our snowy field, I hope I can sniff out a few interesting things to share with you.
At first I thought about using a variation on Einstein's famous quote: "I am a little piece of nature." Love of Nature, of that big green OUT THERE, is my inspiration, along with the realization that we are inextricably OF this world, from the salt in our tears to the amazing biome of microorganisms in our gut that keeps us alive. These, for me, are rich sources of questions and wonder. Then, as I was going through some notes I had recently made while reading Albert Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus, I was moved by an image Camus conjures in his conclusion:
Sisyphus realizes the rock he rolls up the mountain each day with his "earth-clotted hands" is his inescapable fate and...
" ...fate [is] a human matter, which must be settled among men.
All Sisyphus' silent joy is contained therein. His fate belongs to him. His rock is his thing. Likewise, the absurd man, when he contemplates his torment, silences all the idols. In the universe suddenly restored to its silence, the myriad wondering little voices of the earth rise up. Unconscious, secret calls, invitations from all the faces, they are the necessary reverse and price of victory."
The phrase "...the myriad wondering little voices of earth..." caught my heart. We are the animal that wonders, that asks why. This is as much an expression of our essential nature as the chickadee calls I hear outside my window as I write this are an expression of theirs.
Besides, the Einstein quote is already taken by someone on Blogspot.
Camus goes on:
"There is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night. The absurd man says yes and his effort will henceforth be unceasing."
There is a downside to having silenced "all the idols." Without philosophies or belief systems that purport to provide all the answers, we are left with just our "earth-clotted hands" and meagre human understanding. But we can't live on science or pure logic alone, so we are the animal that writes poetry, paints, dances, makes music, tells stories around campfires, builds unnecessarily elaborate buildings, and on and on. This aspect of our nature is what moves me to write - my way of wondering and exploring "the universe suddenly restored to its silence."
And like the little fox that left its footprints in our snowy field, I hope I can sniff out a few interesting things to share with you.
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