Anger — the secondary and less authentic but highly dangerous emotion — is addressed in the purity and awe of wonder.
Small aircraft buzzing overhead has limited entertainment value for me, personally. Pity to live near enough to a light aircraft terminal. I can quickly find myself at inner anguish for the incessant droning of Cessna engines overhead as they bank on approach.
Yet, just as easily my boiling anger, at the uncontrollability of the noise, is quelled — in wonder. As I look skyward, noting the dual mysteriousness — the vacuum in my understanding as to why the noise of urbanisation frustrates me, and, the mystery of airflight — wonder replaces the fight to understand.
It illustrates a salient point.
Wonder is the perfect answer, and corrective, for anger.
Quickly wonder retrieves us back to that primary emotion — the authenticity of humility, for there are many things we don’t know, and will never know.
Wonder is too easily overlooked. It’s a childlike (not ‘childish’) state, but manifested in a mature adult wise to the effect of life quite irreconcilable.
© 2011 S. J. Wickham.
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