Word: wondered
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...perhaps strongest as young children, when nearly everything is exciting because it is new and bigger than we are. This sense subsides over time, and as we enter our teen years it becomes uncool to be impressed by anything. The uncertainty and tentativeness which underlie one's sense of wonder are still present, but they become masked, as teens embrace a disaffected, more-ambivalent-than-thou stance...
Cynical upperclass students will cry that these campus newcomers are merely naive to the ways of college life, but these students seem to have something which is long lost for most seniors--a healthy sense of wonder, that has grown in their souls and informs and animates their studies. If you examine the facial expression and attitude of your average senior, you may find that spark that they entered with has been snuffed out and has been replaced with blase indifference--in their academic lives, personal relationships and in their reaction to the world around them...
...leave us numb to the beautiful and incapable of being moved by the magnificent. Just as an average teenager's desire to fit in leads him or her to squelch a sense of awe, the demands of our education may lead us to unlearn our natural sense of wonder...
...merely in our academic relationships that many seem to have lost our sense of wonder, but also in our personal lives and romantic relationships. In our interaction with others and the world around us, we too infrequently remember to appreciate what is special and extraordinary in these realms, perhaps because we are dissatisfied with anything less than an unrealizable, theoretical ideal. Romantic pursuits, in their early stages at least, are inherently a realm of uncertainty and exploration, yet we often try hard to mask our vulnerability and instead feign a calm suavity, or play hard to get. In striving...
Instead of allowing our desire for mastery over the unknown encroach upon our sense of wonder, we ought to cultivate that sense of wonder, or at least refuse to unlearn it. There is a middle ground between rational analysis and naive innocence, and a robust sense of wonder ought to occupy that middle ground. If we forbid ourselves from feeling awe and excitement, we may do long-term damage and risk setting ourselves on a collision course with midlife crises...