Down the Rabbit Hole

“So she sat on with closed eyes, and half believed herself in Wonderland, though she knew she had but to open them again, and all would change to dull reality.” 

― Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass 




A professor once told me about a student he had in class only a few years ago. The student suddenly looked up over the top of his laptop and said, "You know? I believe our culture and generation today has lost their ability to wonder." And I believe that to be true. 

I have a bit of a confession to make: I am borderline obsessed with Alice in Wonderland. I bought an antique Alice in Wonderland book for $20 at an antique store and I am in love with everything about it. If you take the protective sleeve off, the cover is this rich green with beautifully etched designs on the front and the spine of the hardcover. The pages smell like a spice cupboard mixed with wood chips, and are filled with beautiful original illustrations. 

I bought the complete collection of Lewis Carroll at Barnes & Noble for only $7 and it sits on my nightstand next to my Alice in Wonderland mug. The old paperback book I have of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass has pages falling out and the cover ripping off. 

But what I love most about Alice and her absurd adventures is her ability to wonder, imagine, and to be curious. 

I feel so lost in a world where people go through their day and life without stopping to look, or ask, or wonder in awe about something. With all this amazing, profound technology surrounding us we use it and never stop to think - how did this happen? How did we get to a place where we can talk to our phones and this thing called Siri talks back to us!?

We are becoming like the man in the story and short film, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. It takes place during the Civil War and he is about to be hanged. It isn't until he stands at the edge of the bridge about to have his life ended, that he suddenly notices the little things. The beautiful day, the sun rising, the birds chirping, the leaves, the sand, the way the water moved in the river below, the way the trees danced in the breeze. It isn't until something threatening happens to us, or something is about to be taken away from us, when we stand in wonder at the beauty around us. 

Alice began her big adventure by following something completely out of the ordinary: A talking white rabbit wearing a waist coat and a pocket watch. What would have happened if Alice saw that and thought to herself, "Hm, that's strange!" but then went on with her studies and didn't follow her sense of curiosity. Or what would have happened if Alice was too busy texting and and scrolling through her Facebook news feed to even notice this marvelous, extraordinary sight? She would have never gone to Wonderland, there never would have been this big adventure, and the rest of the book would have been about her boring book with no pictures and her mute cat Dinah. 


Take my nieces, or kids in general. They ask questions. Lots of them. You answer one question and you think, "Great, that's done with!" but no, they have to ask, "But, why?" One time my niece asked after driving by a cemetery what all those stones were out there. "They're graves, it's where people's bodies get buried after they die," her mother said.

"But why do we bury people after they die?"

"Well, we've been doing that for a very long time and we need to get rid of the body after they die somehow."

"But... why?"

And the conversation went on like this for quite sometime. I'm not sure if it got anywhere, but she asks some very great questions. Kids also are not afraid to dream and imagine great, big, absurd, silly things. My niece believes that when she gets to heaven her skin will be indigo, because that's her favorite color. Who knows, maybe she's right. She also thinks the other side of the lake is a whole other country with people who dress differently and speak a different language than us.

We have lost our ability to wonder. We have become desensitized and numbed to every day miracles happening all around us.

Have you ever wondered, I mean truly wondered about why we get hiccups? Or why we have to close our eyes when we sneeze? Or how the birds just know when to come back or go away during the change of seasons and where to go? Or why we started in the first place to color our cheese orange, because it sure as heck isn't naturally that way!

I believe we need to step out of our go-go-go reality for a little bit each day, and step into Wonderland. Because if we lose our ability to wonder... that will truly be a terrifying and awful reality.