Spring Break
Guest columns
Never lose that sense of childlike wonder
By: Cameron Smith
Issue date: 3/24/09 Section: Opinion
I've never written to The Battalion before, but I've always wanted to. I'm not particularly angry about any certain issue right now, but I've been up all night working on make-up work now that the flu has passed through me and I feel like letting out some steam.
I guess I could talk about how disappointed I am in the lack of wonder in the majority of the student body. It's something that eats away at the fiber of my thoughts. Nobody wonders anymore.
Well, children do, but their imagination seems to be shorter-lived with each generation.
Hopefully somebody knows what I'm talking about; you know, that feeling you get when you see something for the first time. It takes all my will power to see something I pass by every day and look at it like I've never seen it before.
People just accept things as everyday occurrences. Nothing special about that Technicolor sunset sprawled across the sky, no, not when there's a party going down tonight; not when there's a chance to get hammered and hit on every member of the opposite sex who meets the physical standards brought on by countless outside influences; especially not when the stories are being told post-party to all the people that were too drunk to remember last night, the stories that consist of completely insignificant mindless dribble thought up to feed the ever-hungry ego.
I see people, students, exactly like this every day, everywhere, and the file pulled up by this sight in that infinite cabinet called my brain is always the same, single, reoccurring quote: "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed."
It may sound like something from the mouth of an aging hippie, but it was said by Albert Einstein. I only ask that if anybody read this little chunk, they do one thing: get rid of those thoughts and voices in your head that aren't even yours and just pause to appreciate something astounding.
Like, I don't know, the infinite size of the Universe. I mean, it goes on forever. If you can't find something to wonder about at any given time, open your mind and start trying.
I guess I could talk about how disappointed I am in the lack of wonder in the majority of the student body. It's something that eats away at the fiber of my thoughts. Nobody wonders anymore.
Well, children do, but their imagination seems to be shorter-lived with each generation.
Hopefully somebody knows what I'm talking about; you know, that feeling you get when you see something for the first time. It takes all my will power to see something I pass by every day and look at it like I've never seen it before.
People just accept things as everyday occurrences. Nothing special about that Technicolor sunset sprawled across the sky, no, not when there's a party going down tonight; not when there's a chance to get hammered and hit on every member of the opposite sex who meets the physical standards brought on by countless outside influences; especially not when the stories are being told post-party to all the people that were too drunk to remember last night, the stories that consist of completely insignificant mindless dribble thought up to feed the ever-hungry ego.
I see people, students, exactly like this every day, everywhere, and the file pulled up by this sight in that infinite cabinet called my brain is always the same, single, reoccurring quote: "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed."
It may sound like something from the mouth of an aging hippie, but it was said by Albert Einstein. I only ask that if anybody read this little chunk, they do one thing: get rid of those thoughts and voices in your head that aren't even yours and just pause to appreciate something astounding.
Like, I don't know, the infinite size of the Universe. I mean, it goes on forever. If you can't find something to wonder about at any given time, open your mind and start trying.
Be sure to include your name, major, and class year. Submissions without this information are subject to deletion.
By submitting a comment, you agree to thebatt.com's Terms of Use.
You may also send a Mail Call to The Battalion at mailcall@thebatt.com