When did we stop asking “why?”

Not the practical kind of “why” that helps us solve a problem or complete a task, but the kind of questions children ask simply because they’re trying to make sense of the world. Why do birds sing before sunrise? Why do leaves change color? Why do people laugh when they’re nervous? Children ask these questions with remarkable persistence. They aren’t worried about whether the question is important enough or whether they should already know the answer. They ask because they are curious.

Somewhere along the way, many of us stop.

We often assume that’s just part of growing up. Children are naturally full of wonder, while adults become practical. We have jobs, responsibilities, and schedules to keep. There isn’t time to stop and marvel at every interesting thing we encounter.

Lately, though, I’ve been wondering if that’s really what happens.

What if we don’t lose our sense of wonder because we become adults? What if we lose it because our brains become efficient?

One of the brain’s most remarkable abilities is its capacity to recognize patterns. Every moment of every day, our senses take in more information than we could ever consciously process. Rather than treating every experience as brand new, the brain constantly compares what we’re seeing, hearing, and feeling to what we’ve experienced before. It builds mental shortcuts that help us move through the world without becoming overwhelmed.

Those shortcuts are incredibly useful. Imagine having to relearn how to drive to work every morning or consciously think through every step of making coffee. We’d never have enough mental energy left for anything else. Our brains are designed to conserve effort by recognizing what is familiar and predicting what is likely to happen next.

The tradeoff is that familiarity changes what we notice.

Have you ever driven somewhere and realized you barely remembered the trip? Or walked past the same picture hanging in your hallway for months without really seeing it? Nothing about those things changed. Your brain simply decided they no longer required your attention.

I wonder if the same thing happens in the rest of our lives.

How often do we assume we already know someone because we’ve worked with them for years? How often do we stop noticing the little details in places we visit every day? How often do we dismiss an idea because it feels familiar instead of looking at it with fresh eyes?

Maybe the world hasn’t become less interesting.

Maybe we’ve simply become better at filtering it.

That realization changed the way I think about wonder. We often talk about it as though it’s a personality trait. Some people are curious. Some people are adventurous. Some people are dreamers. The rest of us are just practical.

I don’t think that’s true.

Wonder isn’t reserved for a particular type of person. It’s closely connected to attention. It’s the decision to pause before assuming we’ve already seen everything there is to see. It’s choosing curiosity over certainty, even in situations that feel ordinary.

The more I learn about neuroscience, the more convinced I become that understanding the brain doesn’t diminish wonder—it expands it. Knowing that our brains are constantly predicting, filtering, and constructing our experience of the world doesn’t make life feel less magical. If anything, it makes ordinary moments even more extraordinary. Every time we notice something we’ve overlooked, we’re catching our brains doing exactly what they evolved to do.

That also explains why wonder is so important for creativity and innovation. We can’t discover something new if we’re convinced we’ve already seen it all. We can’t solve problems in different ways if we never question our assumptions. Wonder begins with the simple willingness to ask, “What am I missing?”

I think that’s true of people as well.

When someone reacts in a way we don’t understand, it’s easy to jump to conclusions. Our brains love quick explanations because they reduce uncertainty. Wonder invites us to take a different approach. Instead of asking, “Why would they do that?” we might ask, “What don’t I know about their story?” That small shift doesn’t just make us more curious. It makes us more compassionate.

Perhaps that’s why I think wonder is a cognitive skill rather than a personality trait. Like any skill, it becomes stronger when we practice it. Every time we ask another question, read something outside our usual interests, notice a detail we’ve overlooked, or challenge one of our assumptions, we’re exercising our ability to see the world with fresh eyes.

The wonderful thing is that we don’t have to travel somewhere extraordinary to experience wonder again. We don’t have to wait for a breathtaking view or a once-in-a-lifetime event. We can practice it while talking with a friend, walking through our neighborhood, reading a book, or noticing something we’ve passed a hundred times before without really seeing it.

Maybe wonder isn’t something we lose as we grow older.

Maybe it’s something we stop practicing.

The good news is that anything we can practice, we can strengthen.

Suggested Reading

If this idea sparked your curiosity, here are a few books that explore attention, curiosity, and the science behind how we experience the world:

• Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life by Dacher Keltner
• The Art of Noticing by Rob Walker
• Curious: The Desire to Know and Why Your Future Depends On It by Ian Leslie
• The Experience Machine by Andy Clark
• Livewired: The Inside Story of the Ever-Changing Brain by David Eagleman

Join the Conversation

Do you think we’ve become less curious as we’ve grown older, or have our brains simply become more efficient at filtering out the familiar? I’d love to hear about a moment when you rediscovered something ordinary and saw it in a completely new way.