That sense of wonder - Book Review

 

"Every disenchanted day we live is a day we surrender to those who want us divided and lonely. A life of wonder is a radical life, for wonder is not childish, little, or cute.

Wonder bites, and so do we." 

I'm not fascinated by this book, I'm not surprised or amused or anything that could imply a feeling of "wonder" or "enchantment". Perhaps because I've already been angry with the way we (as modern age humans) have been living for quite a long time. 

I've been the kind of person who looks up at the morning sky and smiles at the different shapes the clouds take, who looks up at the night sky to talk to the moon and count the stars, the type of person who gets sad when they can't see any stars because our sky has been polluted by noise, every type of noise you could fathom. 

I bought this book because I got captured by its title, as I was going through a time when my anger made me indifferent to the beauty of the sky, when I was carried away by the speed of everything every single day, in hope it would help me to slow down, to re-teach me how to "stop to smell the roses".

Francesco Dimitri succeeded, exceeding my hopes and expectations.

Turns out the author was going through a similar phase of "disenchantment" and "anger", and he was sharing his journey back towards enchantment and wonder with us; he was literally sharing his search for awe in this world. 

He took me in the search for the meaning of wonder and mystery in quite literally "magic" and the way magicians amuse, through the way witches surrender to the beauty of this world and their belief in higher powers without much questioning, and on the contrary through the way scientists don't stop questioning everything. 

Then we reached a point of truly connecting with nature, being in it, and with it. Then my eyes were opened to the power of uncertainty in paving the way towards wonder, and how stories' narratives are fundamental in shaping our reality: "stories bleed into reality, and reality bleeds into stories".

Eventually, we reached the value of connecting to our much-ignored senses, the actual 5 senses we take for granted. 

The journey, my journey with this book, has been humbling and enlightening. 

To find wonder in its most basic and subtle ways feeds our creativity, makes use of our stressors, and builds our relationship with others by enhancing our empathy and communication. 

I'm glad I've come across this book in the most random ways. It's another thing to find wonder in, I guess. 

My take-home message to you after I read this book is: no matter how much this fast-paced capitalism-run modern age makes us feel powerless, we can, by finding wonder and looking for enchantment, regain our power, in ways no one, no matter how hard they try, can steal from us. 
 

"This journey we are taking, which we have started but can never really finish, is a journey of unlearning. At every step of the way, we have rid ourselves of more certainties, we have shed another layer of our armour, to make us ready to step into the world naked and vulnerable, to feel the wind caress our skin, and open the door to wonder."