A sense of awe & wonder - Paris

As our flight from Seville to Paris started descending, I watched as the little girl — who couldn’t have be more than 3 years — in the seat in front of me looked out the window with a look of wonder and awe at the Parisian skyline.

With the gentle sunlight illuminating her face, her mouth open, and her wide eyes transfixed on the skyline, I couldn’t help but wonder what was going through her mind. Naturally, I couldn’t help but wonder how many times we as adults ever experience that pure sense of wonder. How many times do we actually pause to fully take in our surroundings with awe and be fully present?

Life experiences make it impossibly hard for us to not lose our childlike wonder. How can we revive that? How can we truly take in the beauty of something? This is not to say we don’t experience these moments in adulthood — I truly believe we do — but how many times has it actually been pure and without comparison to other things we’ve seen or experienced? How many times have we experienced something without thinking “oh this reminds me of so and so”?

The purity of our experiences is what I’m questioning here. This has heavily been on my mind and I wish I had an answer but I don’t. I suppose the best we really can do is to be as present as possible, without the unconscious need or desire to compare experiences. It’s hard but I believe it is possible.