Discoveries

It's a strange and winding road tonight for my thoughts, a little scattered but still too persistent to put aside. I've been out today, a bit more active than I typically am, going nonstop for the past twelve hours or so. I've had the chance to do some truly fun things, but it brought home to me a point.

Here in Arizona, there is a lovely "wet cave" system called Kartchner Caverns, which was first discovered back in 1974 by a man who loved exploring caves and finding new places. I got to go on a guided tour today, with my Hippy and my little sister, and it was beautiful. But it also made me just the tiniest bit sad. Because I realized, today's world is so full of amazing discoveries it makes me feel as if there is nothing left for me to find.

I used to live in constant wonder, as a child, always besotted with the things around me. From figuring out how to make a potato power a clock to sentence structure and proper diagramming, nothing was beyond my grasp but the world always seemed to hold a little bit more from me, urging me to learn more and more.

As an adult, I've lost that sense of wonder and amazement. I am jaded about things, and take the view that there is nothing left to the world, simply information that other people have found. I feel like there is nothing that is begging for me and my attention, no insignificant but breathtaking little bit of information that only I can find out. And it makes me sad. I feel like, in this sense, I've lost something, and no longer have a real purpose. It's disappointing, to say the least.

I wonder if anyone else feels like they're missing something with this sort of thing, or whether I'm the only one. A few centuries ago, the world was amazed at the broad swathes of knowledge mankind possessed. You could study for years to become a doctor. Now you can study for decades to specialize in one tiny branch of medicine. More information, more discoveries, more learning all the time...

But it's become so optimized, so fractional and tiny, that it seems to have lost its luster, and now only holds appeal to those who wish to dedicate their entire lives. I think a dilettante such as Franklin would be hard pressed to survive in today's world, for so little is general now. There is no room for the hobbyist, for the weekend enjoyment, for the lighthearted pursuit. Now we are focused and driven, as if by obsession, to constantly seek.

It's left me just a little less childlike, in one of the worst ways...