The Return of Wonder: Stop scrolling, look up and let the world astonish you again
It’s become unfashionable to be astonished.
We scroll past sunsets and small miracles every day — each flattened to a ratio that fits the palm of our hands.
But there was a time — sure, let’s call it 15 years ago — when travel meant true, powerful, tangible astonishment. You’d arrive somewhere and your jaw would simply drop.
Wonder and astonishment used to be easy. They formed the natural consequence of viewing something larger, stranger, or more magnificent than ourselves. True. And yet today — we meet the Himalayas with a shrug because there’s no wi-fi and we photograph murals and art and food and cocktails we never look at.
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So use this issue as a gentle slap to rediscover the lost art of being impressed — as led by our cover and the aligned story by Ros Brennan. A South-East Asian adventure, it comes wrapped by surprise in the unexpected moments. There is, in Brennan’s words, a wide-eyed embrace of the awe that framed her time in southern Thailand — discovering reflection and emotion as a result.
Use it as your trigger to stop scrolling. To look up. To let the world astonish you again.
