“Ability to wonder” not “lost”, just “pushed into the background”

What I think Albert Knox means by the sentence, “It seems as if in the process of growing up we lose the ability to wonder about the world”, is that as children become adults, most of them unconsciously learn to take the world for granted and never again give any thought to “what an extraordinary world [they] had come into” and how “life is a huge mystery”. I do not agree with this point of view, as I think that people do not necessarily lose the “faculty of wonder”: although many do stop wondering these things for long periods in their lives, they can wonder once again when provided with time and stimulation.

Although I disagree with the view that everyone except philosophers “lose the ability to wonder about the world”, I agree with the notion that “For various reasons most people get so caught up in everyday affairs that their astonishment at the world gets pushed into the background”. In my view, the “ability to wonder” does “get pushed…into the background”, but in many cases, it is not lost – thus it can be brought back to the front. Knox thinks that once people “crawl deep into the rabbit’s fur”, they “stay there for the rest of their lives”. I agree that people crawl down the rabbit’s fur, but I also think that with some stimulation and time, people will “crawl… back up the fragile hairs again”.

For example, it is not unusual for the elderly to wonder about the astonishing existence of the world or the meaning of life. As Knox said, as children become students or adults, they become busy with studying and working. They no longer have the time to wonder about these things and have less stimulation, because they have too many other things to think about. However, as people grow even older, many retire from work, or no longer have to look after their children who have become adults. They have more time, and in my opinion, more stimulation too, perhaps because death is closer to them than it ever was. If people can wonder once again when they have the time and stimulation, does it not mean that all along, they had not lost the ability to wonder? (They had simply just forgotten about wondering about the world.)

In the first chapter, Sophie mentions her Granny saying “I never realized how rich life was until now”. This shows how her Granny did indeed crawl up the rabbit’s fur once again, and is an example of how the “ability to wonder” is not necessarily lost even when people grow up.