Wonder more.
“I’m very concerned that our society is much more concerned with information than wonder, in noise rather than silence. How do we encourage reflection? … Oh my, this is a noisy world.” ~ Fred Rogers
I’m reading a very difficult book.
Martin Heidegger’s What is Called Thinking?
Early in the book Heidegger writes:
“In America and elsewhere, logistics as the only proper philosophy of the future is thus beginning today to seize power over the spirit.”
The mind as a tool for practical uses.
Data, calculation, prediction, problem-solving.
Pragmatism run amok.
And what struck me is that I almost stopped reading the book.
Why?
Because it’s hard.
It requires slow, deliberative attention.
And, ironically, because I haven’t discovered how it will help me.
So I almost succumbed to the collective mindset I rail against.
One in which concreteness replaces curiosity.
Information suppresses imagination.
And spreadsheets smother serendipity.
But I caught myself.
So I’ll keep reading his ambiguous writing.
Not for the practicality, the ROI.
Rather for the confusion it creates.
Because it’s doubt that creates knowledge.
Wonder is what holds the answers.
To the questions we have yet to ask.
Stay passionate!
This reminds me of an Eckhart Tolle observation that enlightenment is to be found in the space between things, not in the things themselves. Slipping into that space takes very deliberate attention.