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The 2010 Oscar-winning feature documentary The Cove shows wonder at work. In 1964, Ric O'Barry landed a young dude's dream job. As trainer of the five bottle-nosed dolphins used for the television show Flipper, O'Barry lived on a lake, bought a new Porsche each year, and took his share of Miami fun in the sun.
Then, O'Barry experienced what I call a wonder switch.
After the show ceased, the dolphins were taken to a dolphinarium where they weren't treated sensitively. Kathy, the first and most-often used dolphin in the Flipper show, became - according to O'Barry - depressed and despondent. She died in his arms.
Kathy's death triggered feelings in O'Barry that had been dormant for ten glory-filled bankrolling years: Compassion for this creature whose intelligence and sonorous sensitivity surpassed human beings.' Wonder toward this creature's radiant self-awareness. Outrage for the industry of dolphin captivity he had helped produce.
Within days of Kathy's death, O'Barry was in jail for releasing other dolphins at a nearby facility off Bamini Island. So began O'Barry's next thirty-plus years as a crusader for freeing the world's Flippers (See The Dolphin Project).
What drives activists and altruists? Kristen Renwick Monroe (The Heart of Altruism: Perceptions of a Common Humanity) interviews numerous people who have acted on behalf of people not their kin. An open heart more than self-interest, Monroe argues, drives many altruists.
But before compassion and before curiosity, there's wonder - that state of utter receptivity and deep connection. In Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions (2003), Martha C. Nussbaum argues that wonder helps human beings see others as "part of one's own circle of concern.... No emotion matches wonder in its capacity to evoke true empathy or compassion." It's no wonder Descartes deemed wonder (l'admiration) the first of all passions.
Justice. Compassion. Righteous indignation. Idealism. These feelings likely pump the hearts of people who picket, protest, organize, and make change. But at the heart of many of these motivations might be wonder.
Even after Kathy died, O'Barry likely could not help but recall the joy and delight the dolphin had brought his inquisitive spirit. Her death perhaps mixed his wonder with a selfless need to act on her species' behalf. Such emotional memory can trigger deep desire to protect that connection even if it means rallying against special interest groups, organizations, and people whose actions threaten it. Wonder can lead to activism.
That's my take on much of what happens in Louie Psihoyos' film The Cove. The documentary's director rallies his own cast of creative specialists all with a singular aim: capture raw footage of Japanese fishers' daily red-water slaughter of some 700-plus dolphins in Taiji - a small town that promotes itself as a dolphin lover's mecca - to raise awareness of and ultimately stop the unnecessary practice. "We made this film," Psihoyos said in the Oscar speech he didn't get to deliver, "to give the oceans a voice."
Students not dolphins in part flipped a wonder switch in economist Paul Romer, a guy who gave up a tenured position at Stanford to, in essence, track wonder. There's a photograph of a group of students in Guinea dutifully finishing their homework beneath the G'bessi Airport street lights. It's an odd image, the sort of juxtaposition that can invite curiosity if we pay attention.
Why are students doing their homework at airports and other public spaces at night? Because the Guinea government's corrupted officials had deprived several citizens of electricity. Pay attention to that odd feeling, and several questions can arise about economics, governance, and what people fundamentally want and need.
Romer has put a big idea into action: Charter cities in countries with developing economies. Romer's website describes it this way: "Charter cities let people move to a place with rules that provide security, economic opportunity, and improved quality of life. Charter cities also give leaders more options for improving governance and investors more opportunities to finance socially beneficial infrastructure projects." (Check out the freakonomics blog interview with Romer at NYT.) In a Newsweek piece, NYU economist William Easterly said, "There's a thin line between revolutionary and crazy. Paul Romer has been adept at walking that line throughout his career, staying just out of the crazy part. He's still tiptoeing along that line with this new idea." In some ways, that line between revolutionary and crazy can be the line of an wonder-driven activist.
"There's no impediment, other than a failure of imagination," Romer says on his website, "that will keep us from delivering on a truly global win-win solution."
A failure of imagination is a failure of wonder.
Small things can flip a wonder switch. For Ken Greene and Doug Muller, the delight and wonder of seeds led them to build the Hudson Valley Seed Library - a veritable haven for non-hybrid, non-Monsanto-tainted heirloom seeds that put food's source literally in the hands of people, not corporations. I'm guessing what keeps these two guys toiling for twelve hours a day is sure not fame or fortune but some sweet mix of delight, joy, and curiosity that is the garden of wonder.
I'm not suggesting that wonder inspires all activists. I am suggesting that wonder can play a crucial role in provoking us to act on behalf of someone, some animal, some seed that is other than if not greater than ourselves, our families, or even our own species.
Without wonder, activism can become all politics and battle - a recipe for burn-out and alienation. With frequent visits from wonder, activists can continue to organize, deep dive, build cities, and plant seeds for a better world.
Do you want to live for a cause larger than yourself? Heed what stops you in your tracks with mysterious delight, puzzling joy, and an unnamed sense that something else that is part of you and greater than you is worth fighting for. Then, gather a tribe or troop or cast of characters and act accordingly.
Do you have something to contribute to the conversation on wonder and activism? I'd love to hear from you.
Jeffrey Davis
The Journey from the Center to the Page: Yoga Philosophies and Practices as Muse for Authentic Writing.
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