In the beginning, there is astonishment.

That’s really all a newborn baby ever experiences: astonishment. The world for the fetus is a blob of nothingness… and then, with its birth, the world invades. There is light, there are colors, there’s hot and cold, sweet and sour, silence and music. Every new experience comes with astonishment. It doesn’t matter whether or not the baby hates the bitter flavor of Brussels sprouts or whether or not he loves the tang of orange juice. Good or bad, the taste is new… and astonishment is inevitable.

Then one day, because a baby can only be “newborn” for so long, what was once astonishing becomes mundane. The world falls into place, and g=9.81m/s². Many of us don’t accept this vision of the world; these people try to learn more. Scientists, for example, do what they did as infants; they try to see more of the world. Others find astonishment in art, music, poetry, prose, and drama. Some find astonishment in sports: We can’t help but gape when that basketball player with that random number does that… random move. Yeah… uh, please forgive my ignorance with basketball terminology.

Astonishment results from unnatural experiences, and unnatural experiences, by definition, do not normally happen during the course of a person’s day. With this blog, I aim to explore astonishment and its causes in its various forms. However, because this does happen to be an online blog, I will probably go on tangents and, eventually, I will forget the blog’s existence completely.

If my blog on astonishment lasts, I will be… uh, astonished.

Anyway, in a final attempt at failed dramatics within this two-dimensional world of pixels (as long as time allows), I will explore the Art of Astonishment and, more importantly, I will delve into the precise moment when astonishment happens.

_{(Magician Paul Harris coined the term “art of astonishment” and “moment of astonishment.”)}