Where has the wonder gone?
You win a few and lose a few in this life—and you just hope by the end the balance is positive. I’ve always felt this wonder about life and the universe around me. If you haven’t looked in the mirror in the morning and asked “Why am I here?” something is terribly wrong with you. My “why?” was often projected outwards, a pitiful soliloquy to an unresponding Universe that seemed to pose great mysteries I must strive to solve, a scientific sleuth tracking down answers. I did my small part and relished the successes of others. I’ve never stopped wondering.
I was an avid reader from the time I discovered comic books at age four—or was it three? I wanted to fill in my own balloons and make my own comics. My mother helped me. My love of reading was helped along by an older brother who joined a sci-fi book club. Writing and wonder made for a heady mixed drink that addicted me to both science and the written word. You might know me for the “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series” (my interest in mysteries and thrillers came later) or “The Clones and Mutants Series” (futuristic or techno-thrillers), but “The Chaos Chronicles Trilogy,” my Foundation series, is more closely related to those early days spent reading books from my brother’s collection (Isaac Asimov’s Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun were my introduction to the mystery genre). By the time I ended junior high, I had forsaken those comic books and perused all the sci-fi books in our public library…and decided I wanted to be a writer.
Reality set in: there was not much money to be made as a writer and more to be made as a scientist, including a college education. The win, sort of (I knew you were waiting for one): I benefitted from the U.S. government’s reaction to Sputnik. For those of you not yet born, Sputnik was the start of the space race between the U.S.S.R. and the U.S. Politicians, as they often do, over-reacted and began throwing money at science and technology (unlike today, where they tend to throw insults, especially those who can’t distinguish between true science and shamanism). I always felt uncomfortable with this reaction—why was a competition between two ideologies necessary to pursue things of wonder? Of course, I never would have pursued a scientific degree if that hadn’t allowed me to satisfy a bit of the wonder.
I made a career out of wonder and now I am finally a writer—some words on that on Thursday. But ‘nough about me. The purpose of this post is to lament the loss of wonder. A wee bit was resurrected a few days ago when astronaut Chris Hadfield, a Canadian, became a YouTube sensation singing David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” in the ISS (that’s International Space Station for the acronym-challenged). He sang it with a slight change of lyrics—the astronaut doesn’t die. Maybe this was Hadfield’s plea for maintaining the wonder? The wonder lives on, in spite of stupid politicians who never had it and never will.
Our government, beleaguered by the onslaught of budget cuts promoted by Tea Party fanatics and other hand-wringing nuts, has turned its back on the wonder. That old feeling about the space race I had has now become a national nightmare: without a militaristic, ideological foe, there is no wonder. And I wonder why? It’s not like scientific questions have taken a vacation to a galaxy far, far away. Why does wonder have anything to do with politics or causes?
In the wonder business, our nation has become a pauper. Commercial interests now drive technology as greedy corporations force their scientists and engineers to get the next new technological marvel or wonder drug on the market. Science and technology have become prostitutes to the bullying tactics of rampant commercialism. The wonder of the moon landing has been replaced by a canceled shuttle program and our astronaut-scientists hitching a ride on an antiquated Russian rocket—at least it gets up there! We couldn’t return to the moon even if the Chinese paid us to do it.
Yes, I won by being able to participate a bit in the wonder and admiring it from afar like many others of my generation. But I now lose by seeing the younger generations more worried about the mundane things on Earth—the 2.3 kids, new houses, new cars, and that buying power for all the latest electronic gadgets. They all seem a wee bit like zombies, soul-less because they lack wonder, walking undead because there’s no wonder to keep them alive. Most don’t know it and those who do, don’t care.
Of course, the younger generation is not really at fault. They have the wonder pounded out of them as schools, largely ineffective in educating the next generation, still convey the need to go after those mundane things, to become good consumers that feed the maws of industry and commerce, and to forget about the wonder. Enough survive this first brainwashing to satisfy the captains of industry, providing the latter with their scientists and engineers, but university education usually corrupts these too and the corporations finish the job, as greed kills wonder.
This is an international phenomenon, not just American. The Chinese economy is based on a slavish pursuit of new markets—wonder never has been present. Well, maybe the wonder of how Maoist communism morphed into fascistic capitalism. The Chines might be the first to arrive on Mars even, but the motivation will be economic—that’s a guarantee. They’re only interested in making the next buck. Modern capitalism is an unthinking beast, barely sentient, and certainly incapable of wondering.
Where has the wonder gone? Maybe to one of those E-type planets orbiting some planet light-years away? We certainly won’t find it here on Earth! As a species, human beings have become provincial. Oh sure, we have our scientific satellites , our accelerators, and our programs to look for dark matter and energy, but most people have learned not to care about them too much and cut their funds when they think they’ve become too costly. We look inward, focusing on our own small planet. Even with that, we don’t seem to be doing much to preserve it. Science and technology have put on the robe of commercialism—there is no money in wondering. The loss for me: it’s tremendous!
And so it goes….
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