Wonderful

This morning, I decided to have a wonderful day. This was partially a whimsical inspiration, helped along by waking to the rays of the morning sun on the face of my sweetheart, and partially an extension of a New Year's resolution to think positively. I won't belabor you with the self-help rhetoric that's so popular these days, but I am coming to see for myself the difference that hope and affirmative envisioning can bring.

Wonderful is a cool word, and it bears a fine example of the context that can come packaged with words. Wonder has the promise of two delicious experiences within it: curiosity and marvelment. Many of the best questions one can ask start with "I wonder", as in "I wonder why chocolate is so gratifying" and "I wonder what forces act upon my physical body as I walk to the pantry to get some chocolate". A statement beginning with "I wonder" has a certain rhetorical intrigue, for it does not end with a question mark. It is rather a discrete utterance of fact, describing a state of questioning. Interrogative pronouns such as "who, what, when" beg answer and debate, but when preceded with "I wonder", they become hypotheses to be tested  and bested. To that end, wonderings are often left unanswered. They remain shrouded in tantalizing mystery, belonging to the world of wonder.

However, "I wonder" can also engender an intense appreciation or incredulity, as in "I wonder at her ability to eat such quantities of chocolate". Something needs not be believable to inspire a sense of wonder. Wonder implies a state of fascination, being wholly entranced with a thing. The Seven Wonders of the World are considered to be wonderful enough as to deserve international, timeless fascination and curiosity. Objects of wonder are often paragons of excellence, displaying ideals to which we all should aspire - Wonder Woman being a fine example. She has a strong ethical backbone, superhuman abilities rivaling those of that blue boyscout we all secretly dislike, and she wears cool-ass clothes (including a tiara which she throws at baddies). Comic artist Charles Moulton reportedly conceived of her as being a "...Distinctly feminist role model whose mission was to bring the Amazon ideals of love, peace, and sexual equality to a world torn by the hatred of men." Righteous.

"Wonderful" is wonderful because it implies the state of being full of wonder, brimming with it, consumed by it. Those who have their fill of wonder can have no room left for anything else and thus have given themselves over to it. There is a surrender in wonderful, a recognition that one can do nothing except appreciate the object of wonderment. The human psyche is wired for wonder. I intend, today and each day hereafter, to tap into all that is wonderful.