When Beauty Triggers Wonder

Accelerating natural curiosity and awe in the age of TikTok and AI

In my life, wonder usually washes over me in isolation, free from distractions. If someone else attempts to control my attention, my ability to see and respond to beauty is extinguished. I don’t do well with guided tours involving large groups of people.

The hiker, the camera, and the beauty of it all

I can hike quite fast, uphill or downhill, but I rarely do. I prefer a slow, measured cadence through forests and meadows, allowing beauty to surprise me.

Sometimes, beauty looks like a tiny blue mushroom tucked under a rotting log. Other times, it looks like morning sunlight kissing the peaks of mountains. If I move too fast, I miss those things.

I became a photographer to see the world more clearly and vividly. If I attach a wide-angle lens to my Nikon Z8, I focus on the grand scale of things — the panorama in front of me.

If I switch to a macro lens designed for close-up work, I see things on a much smaller scale. Tiny honey bees crawling on flowers, and the texture of the bark on old live oaks pop out. Beauty appears in both domains, the expansive and the confined.

I once knew a student, Luca Martinez, who took his camera into the Everglades and uncovered a universe of beauty. He spent evenings in the wetlands, sleeping in a hammock between two cypress trees. Where others saw a dismal swamp, he saw wonder. His photographs are stunning reminders to pay attention to the natural world.

Beauty triggers wonder…and more.

I recently read a journal article by Catherine L’Ecuyer, an educational consultant from Barcelona, Spain, who remarked that ‘beauty triggers wonder.’ I couldn’t agree more.

Beauty begets wonder, and wonder begets curiosity.

Aside from love, beauty, wonder, and curiosity are three of the most delicious things I have ever experienced. I would add a fourth link in that chain after curiosity—learning.

So many learning opportunities are ignored or wasted in our schools because we seem reluctant to focus on beauty, if only for an instant. Children instinctively notice the beauty around them, and we should nurture that instinct, not suppress it.

Taken to an extreme, following the beauty-wonder-curiosity-learning trail can lead to little more than aimless wandering. I wouldn’t advocate that approach in classrooms. But to ignore it completely is nothing short of a travesty.

Intoxicated by wonder

For me, losing myself in beauty and its effects is therapeutic. I can gaze up the towering trunk of a sequoia and be intoxicated by wonder.

• “How many different ecosystems exist in this single tree?”
• “Who do sequoias grow so much taller than any other trees?”
• “Why does being in the presence of these magnificent trees penetrate my soul so deeply?”

Stars have always had a predictable grip on my imagination. Lying back on a soft bed of grass on a clear night and soaking up the beauty of the heavens reminds me of how insignificant I truly am. There is something strangely comforting about feeling that insignificance — I am not the center of the universe, and that’s okay.

On cue, my mind starts generating questions…

• “What planets orbit those distant suns, and what do they look like?”
• “Isn’t it a wee bit arrogant to believe that Earth holds a monopoly on life?
• “What’s on the other side of the edge of the universe?”

Here’s the sequence of events that happen to me when I view the Milky Way -

• Its beauty entrances me.
• I am momentarily awestruck with wonder.
• I become curious about the vast, unknown universe.
• I am hungry to learn more.

This process repeats itself repeatedly — with astronomy and other sources of similar beauty. The more I experience it, the easier it becomes.

Learning to ask great questions

I’ve read two good books about questions, one for adults and one for students, and I learned a great deal from both.

The first (for adults) is A More Beautiful Question by Warren Berger. Berger’s book contains stories about people from different professions using beautiful questions to transform their lives and work. An example of one of these questions comes from the photography industry -

“What if film wasn’t necessary to capture images?”

The other book is Make One Change: Teaching Students to Ask Their Own Questions. The authors present an incredible mechanism for generating awesome questions called “The Question Formulation Technique,” or QFM. The QFM consists of four steps:

1. Ask as many questions as you can.
2. Do not stop to discuss, judge, or answer the questions.
3. Write down every question exactly as it is stated.
4. Change any statement into a question.

QFM flows naturally from the beauty-wonder-curiosity linkage. Every child and adult should at least have the chance to learn the QFM strategy to promote curiosity and deep understanding.

Invite beauty, wonder, and curiosity into your life.

Remember how good it is to be alive the next time you view a gorgeous sunrise. The neuroscience of vision alone is staggeringly phenomenal. Never take a single episode of beauty for granted.

Better yet, take photographs, write about them, and share your experiences with others. Create your own library of beauty and wonder.

Create your own library of beauty and wonder.

Life is unpredictable — cherish every moment of it

Today, I met a woman about my age who left her house one day while her husband was getting ready for work. Shortly after that, he suffered a massive stroke and collapsed to the floor.

He had never been sick in over ten years and was, by all accounts, in robust health. When she returned home twelve hours later, she said that her home looked like someone had broken in and killed someone.

When her husband fell to the floor, he hit his head and bled profusely. Dazed and unable to coordinate his movements, he thrashed around the house, unable to find the front door. He has lost most of his cognitive abilities.

Fate threw a switch, and the trajectories of their lives were permanently altered.

The next time you feel the warmth of beauty and wonder showering over you, treasure it — you are not guaranteed anything tomorrow.

Life is beautiful. Life is wondrous. Life is a curious thing. Life is precious.

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