The Spark That Never Fades: A Life of Wonder and Curiosity

The quiet power of wonder: a life of curiosity and exploration.

The Quiet Power of Wonder: A Life of Curiosity

There is a kind of magic that lives in the heart of curiosity. It begins quietly, often in childhood, when a boy or girl looks at the world and simply wants to know. Not for a test. Not for a grade. Just to understand. Just to feel the spark of wonder. That small but powerful feeling can change a life.

When I was a boy, I was always curious. I wanted to see what was inside my toys, so I took them apart, even though I knew I might get scolded. I wanted to understand how things worked. I remember one day our little tube radio started making too much static. Most people would have just lived with it or brought it to the repair shop. But not me. I opened it up and looked at the tubes. I saw that they were still glowing and not burnt out. Then I noticed something. When I touched the antenna, the static would go away. That gave me an idea.

Somehow, I found an insulated wire and connected it to the antenna. The sound improved. It still wasn’t perfect, so I kept adding more wire until the reception got even better. It worked. I had solved the problem. But when it was discovered, I was told not to touch the radio again, and it was taken to be repaired.

A few days later, I was sent to pick it up. I asked the man at the shop what was wrong, but he would not tell me. When I got home, I saw what he did. He simply grounded the antenna. He had a golden opportunity to teach me something, to reward my curiosity, but he said nothing. My experiment was over, not because it failed, but because it was not welcomed. That was just one of many moments in my childhood when my desire to explore the world was discouraged. It felt like every path I followed was blocked.

And yet, my curiosity stayed alive.

I bought telescopes and tried to look at the stars. I visited the Hayden Planetarium in New York, which was part of the Museum of Natural History. I remember standing there, in awe of the heavens, trying to take in the vastness of space. That feeling was wonder. That was what it meant to be curious.

Even though some people said I was not a reader, I still read and read and read. I read Mark Twain. I read the haunting stories of Edgar Allan Poe over and over again. I read Moby Dick even though it was difficult. I read The Three Musketeers and Ivanhoe and Crime and Punishment. I read Jules Verne and George Orwell and so many others. I did not read because someone told me to. I read because I was curious. I wanted to know more about the world, about people, about ideas, about everything.

And that has never gone away. Just recently, someone around my age said they did not understand modern technology. I smiled and said I find it fascinating and I am still trying to learn more. That is what curiosity looks like. It does not go away. It changes and grows with us.

What I worry about today is whether children still feel that kind of wonder. Are they still allowed to follow it. Jonathan Haidt has written about how many young people are becoming lost in their phones. Their attention is being pulled toward endless images and messages. But what about books. What about the stars. What about radios and wires and the wish to fix something just to see if you can.

It hurts to see books being removed from libraries because some fear they send the wrong message. But books are how we grow. They are how we learn to think. To remove them is to shut down curiosity. And when we stop being curious, we stop growing.

Wonder is not loud. It does not make a show of itself. But it is strong. It is steady. It is a voice inside that whispers I want to know. When we follow that voice, we begin to understand life in a deeper way. And when we help our children follow it too, we give them something lasting and beautiful.

Wonder is the beginning of everything. And it never truly leaves us if we let it live.