I’ve spoken often, and written here and elsewhere, about curiosity as a core driving force in my life. Some would describe it as being in a state of perpetual wonder, which I love.

But curiosity is an outlook, a motivator, a frame of mind. It’s not an action. So what is it to put curiosity to action?

Is it as simple as stopping to smell the roses? Or, even better, stopping to smell things that aren’t roses. Paying attention to your surroundings? Asking questions? Exploring?

For me, one way has been going on long random walks, with often surprising outcomes… stumbling upon garage sales or public art, bumping into people unexpectedly, wandering into new places, listening to birds and other fellow creatures going about their lives, letting my mind wander just as my body wanders.

But that’s just looking at it in the micro, I realized, and yet, upon further reflection, true in the macro as well.

In the macro, the big picture, in the context of my life as a whole, it has also been a long random journey, of a sort. Perhaps I have had an idea of some specific way points I’d like to reach along the way, a vague sense of a general direction, but the surprising outcomes have come in big ways as well as small.

So not only has my life been a state of perpetual wonder, it has been a state of perpetual wander, figurative if not always literal, and what a joy and privilege it has been to have it be so.

I recently picked up a book on one of my wanders, from a Little Free Library I passed, called Happy: Secrets to Happiness from the Cultures of the World, published by Lonely Planet Books. In its introduction, it suggests that about 40% of our level of happiness comes from “how we perceive our circumstances.” That, for me, is where curiosity comes in.

But those circumstances are also to some degree in our control, though never fully and sometimes only in small ways. Perhaps this is where the wander plays its role.

When life throws me a curve ball, not only can I be curious about that curve and that ball, and the pitcher and the game, I can also move so that I can take a better swing at it.

Or, to get away from the sports analogies to something more resonant with me, when the river curves into unexpected rapids, you can study and navigate those rapids as best you can… or you can say, nope, I think I’m going to portage for a spell, I wonder what’s over there, maybe I’ll wander thataway for a while. (Side note: if you’re at such a decision point, maybe this bit of musing might help…)

Which brings me to another book I happened to find while browsing the shelves at one of my favourite local bookstores recently, and that I’ve been reading at what has turned out to be a most opportune time, The Wander Society by Keri Smith. If any of this post has resonated with you, you might want to pick up a copy from your local library or indie bookseller.

And as some final bits thrown onto this corner of the mental mulch pile, a recommendation for a couple of YouTube videos I’ve returned to and recommended many times since I first saw them, one a convocation speech with “Nine Life Lessons” delivered by Tim Minchin, the other a video on “How to Age Gracefully” from the sadly ended CBC radio show Wiretap.

All this to say, wherever you’re at, whatever challenges you’re facing, maybe take moment for a bit of a wander. Who knows where it might take you?

Solvitur ambulando.

Happy wandering!

— Winston