What’s Made the World Wonderful Recently?

Last week, when discussing how to find wonder within everyday life, I asked Philosophy Break’s 18,000+ subscribers the following questions:

• How do you cultivate awe and attention in the heat of the day-to-day?​
• What did you last truly wonder at?

The answers I received were wonderfully insightful. Keeping them to myself would be the act of a greedy tyrant, and so in this article I hand the reins over to the brilliant, thoughtful Philosophy Break readership…

I haven’t been able to feature all responses, nor the entirety of the responses that do feature. However, I’ve done my best to select a representative sample, and honor the nuance and context of the original responses as much as possible.

I hope you enjoy reading each other’s brilliant words. If you’re not yet part of the Philosophy Break newsletter community, you can sign up free here. Thank you for being so thoughtful week after week.

Now, over to you on what’s made life wonderful!

Gudrun (Canada): The frog comes back...

I am 85 years old, retired teacher, farmer, world traveller. I have spent an hour in the Potala in the Dalai Lama’s ‘growing up room’ (Heinrich Harrer), been around the Horn, up in the Burj Kalifah, spent a week in the Trans Siberian Train, a week in Dharamsala, Pompeii, floated above the Iguassu Falls – but one of my greatest experiences was this:

One spring morning I found a little frog spread-eagled in the pot of water under the rain spout – almost frozen. I took the little creature in my hand, cupped the other on top so he would not fall out, thinking I am going to carry him down to our pond to lay him there at rest. Half way down, I felt a kick in my hand – its heart had started to pump and pump – I felt it and I saw it – without doubt that was one of the greatest happenings in my life – and as a farmer I have assisted in hundreds of births of calves, puppies, kittens, watched so many chicks pick themselves out of their hatching prisons – but this little green frog – and its heart, pounding away with such force – that was ‘creation’ all over again. The pond was not frozen, so I set the little creature gently down at its edge.

Life is such a miracle – just look at a bird’s nest. We have a brain and ten good fingers – could we make one??? all they have is one little beak. One small seed – looks and feels like a dead rock – give it some water, heat and light – and there is life – and you’ll get all the beauty and food you’ll ever want and need.

Ehj31 (USA): Three identical clouds...

Yesterday I noticed three nearly identical clouds with white tops and grey bottom slightly overlapped in a bright blue sky. I was in a shopping center parking lot with family who were griping, worrying and striving for each other's attention. Though I considered trying to show them the clouds, I kept this wonderment to myself. I felt guilty for not sharing.

Joel: If gravity didn’t exist...

The idea of wonder has been close to my heart in the past year, amid the pressures and expectations of work and life. And I feel that I've cultivated a sense of wonder through art. Through my interpretation of the world around me on paper (maybe it's time to explore the world inside me), I marvel at how the ways buildings and objects are shaped, the way the some things appear bigger or smaller due to their distance from me and how certain colours evoke certain emotions in me.

…there's something different when I put my hand into the paper and begin to draw. There's always a sense of experimenting, and questioning that never fails to make me think more about the same world around me (what if the train was smaller? What if gravity never existed?)

Linda (USA): The moon returns...

Yesterday I opened my curtains and out there in the clear, early morning sky was the sliver of a waning crescent moon, hanging there, just as we picture a moon in storybooks. I thought about it on and off all day — and now, still, today.​

Gözde (Turkey): The sky transitions...

Cultivating awe and attention often requires a conscious effort. For me, it starts with pausing in the moment and truly feeling it. For example, when I drink my morning tea, I’m not just drinking tea; I try to notice its aroma, its warmth, and the sense of calm that small moment brings me. Similarly, looking up at the sky or watching how the wind moves the leaves of trees are simple acts that help me stay present and nourish my sense of wonder about the world. Paying attention to small things seems to be the key to recognizing life’s bigger miracles. As Hesse said, we are already living within a miracle; we just need to choose to see it…

The last time I truly felt awe was a few days ago when I saw the sunset. As the sun dipped toward the horizon, the sky transitioned like a palette of colors, shifting from orange to red. In that moment, I marveled at how nature could create something so simple yet so breathtaking. It’s something that happens every day, but that particular day, that light, that moment, will never happen again in the same way. That thought always fascinates me: the idea that everything is unique and special in its own time.

This ever-renewing miracle of nature reminded me of Goethe’s words: “I am here, that I may wonder.” Perhaps we don’t need grand things to look at life with awe; we only need to see and feel what’s happening around us.

James (USA): The dishwasher empties...

Just yesterday I began a new practice when emptying the dishwasher. A rather mundane chore was transformed when I started to recall the meals we ate on this plate or the friend that that fork fed. The nourishment that was given and shared while we laughed or played. Each bite of wondrous life never to be consumed in the same way twice but to be appreciated in a different manner, from a different life.

Each dish, silverware, or utensil held its own story. And I was able to reflect on how grateful I was for all the meals and people who gathered to break bread with us during that particular week. I will try to maintain this wonder and awe when unloading it from now on.

Hils (UK): The ants worship...

Of all the conversations I had with my Dad, the one that repeats in my mind is when he was gardening and he stopped to look at ants scurrying backwards and forwards across the path that divided the flower patch from his vegetables and said, ‘I wonder if they think I’m a God’ … He proceeded to tread over them, as if that thought made him kind. He always said he was an atheist, so it was nature that made him kind and made him wonder. Made me wonder too.

So, Carson’s use of the natural world to inner contentment seems right and useful to me. Indeed, I walk or ride in the forest a lot and sunlight on a mossy bark, or a robin appearing to follow me on my ride, or a deer made visible by the movement of just one leaf, stills my attention, stops me, silences me very well indeed, so that I can marvel at my ordinary life yet again.

Ellen (USA): Stones in the room...

Just this morning I held a small stone, admiring its beauty, feeling its texture against against my fingers, noticing its coolness and how it warmed in the embrace of my hand. Most might see a common brown stone, I saw a miracle. Stones inhabit most rooms in my home.

Mary (Netherlands): The ladybirds huddle...

I find myself wondering if there is a very particular period of time in our lives where we are pulled away from this ability to fully look. To allow ourselves, or be allowed, to see. As very young children it seems that there is almost a sense of permission to simply stare. Or an acceptance of our doing so? And at my age - 70s - everything slows down naturally and it often becomes necessary to sit and observe for a little while.

But in between these ages, that place where the word responsibility takes centre stage, I fear it is not encouraged. We have so many little phrases to cover the discouragement of being in the present moment. 'Don't dawdle'; The devil makes work for idle hands; Deadlines are looming!' et al. Whether in our working lives or family duties, the encouragement to stop and fully admire a simple event or item, is rarely there. It's one of the reasons I am happy to be in my 70s.

At the moment I am writing this on my laptop, but before I sat down I had a happy five minutes with a group of ladybirds who are semi hibernating in the corner of a window sill. They occasionally wake and have a little wander before settling back in their corner. I put a little drop of honey or a tiny piece of apple in their path and watch as they have a snack. Once it has gone they march back to their chosen place and settle down in a red and black spotted huddle.

As William Henry Davis put it:

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows...

Related Philosophy Breaks

• ​Finding Rapture in the Humdrum: Cultivating Wonder for Everyday Life
• The Last Time Meditation: a Stoic Tool for Living in the Present
• Iris Murdoch: ‘Unselfing’ is Crucial for Living a Good Life
• Mono No Aware: Beauty and Impermanence in Japanese Philosophy
• Anicca: Our Collective Way of Life Won’t Exist Soon

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