Loss of "ability to wonder" or just the chance to use the "ability to wonder"?

What Albert Knox meant when he said that we lose the ability to wonder when we grow up is the fact that when we grow older and older, we start getting so used to everything which happens from day-to-day that it doesn’t occur to us anymore that there may be more to the world than what we know of. I do not agree with this statement that he made due to the fact that no one ever really loses the ability and faculty to wonder in life. The reason why it may seem that as people grow up they lose the ability to wonder is merely because as we gain knowledge and understanding of the world we live in, we gradually decrease in matters to wonder about. Due to this, I believe that humans merely reduce their chances of wondering about the world when they grow older and that if the right chance was given to them to start wondering again, any human would take the chance instantly. It is only in wondering about the world that human beings can learn more about it, therefore, humans cannot circumvent the fact that they live to wonder.

An analogy is used to describe this loss of the ability to wonder when he compared out faculty of wonder with a rabbit, stating that as we grow up, similar to a rabbit, we begin crawling into the rabbit hole and the deeper we crawl into the hole, the more we lose the ability to wonder about the world. I would have to say that, honestly, I partially agree with the statement he posted when he used the rabbit analogy. This is because as he said on page 19, “people get so caught up in everyday affairs that their astonishment at the world gets pushed into the background”. I do believe he is correct in saying this because of the fact that so many things happen in a human’s life at once, there is simply no time left for humans (especially older ones) to even stop and wonder about the world they live in. However, although I do believe in some parts of his argument, I also partially disagree with his words when he stated that all humans will “stay there for the rest of their lives”. As stated on my argument above, yes, it’s true that people lose small amounts of their ability to wonder when they grow up, but it can’t be gone forever. We are born with the ability to wonder and so we live life with the ability to wonder, regardless of whether or not we are using it. As long as we are given the chance and time to wonder, it is inevitable that humans will take the chance and once again, start wondering again.

Albert Knox then uses another example to illustrate his point when he showed us the different reactions of the Thomas and her mother in seeing Thomas’ father flying. He states that Thomas has the ability to take in and accept the fact that his father can fly but his mother, dissimilarly, becomes shocked by what she sees and because of that, needed medical attention due to the shock she had in her. By using this example, Albert Knox hoped to illustrate that the reason why Thomas was able to process the fact that his father can fly was because he was still young and that he has not learned that people cannot fly, yet. Therefore, he has the ability to wonder about flying and thus accept the fact that his father is flying. However, I would interpret this example differently as I can see by this example that the mother is in actual facts, wondering too, merely in a different perspective. The fact that the mother acted the way she did shows that she wondered about why her husband was flying. This supports my theory as it shows that the mother did actually start wondering after having been given the chance (the chance being seeing her husband fly)

I do believe that although people do climb into the rabbit hole as they grow older and older, it is possible that they can in fact crawl back out if they were given the right opportunity. This can be perfectly illustrated when it can be seen that Sophie started wondering after having been the chance to (an example of the chances she obtained would be when she obtained the letter asking “who are you?”). The world would not be what it was today if everyone stopped wondering about the world. There would be no cars, no electronic products or even ToK because no one in the world would have the ability to think of producing these items as the ability to thinkn of creating these items comes from the ability to wonder about the needs these items are satisfying. The world would probably still be what it was from the start if people could not wonder.

In conclusion, I do not fully agree with what Albert Knox says. We do not fully lose the ability to wonder when we grow up; we just lose chances to wonder. I know that if the right chance appears in front of anyone, everyone would take it and start wondering again. I know I would wonder if given the chance to do it.