Still Wondering Why We Wonder?

Additionally, how do we wonder? Often, what is it we wonder about?   Now, do other creatures wonder? That we  can't possibly know.  But if we must wonder about the latter, what could they possibly be wondering about?

Let's do this first. We have a bird feeder in our backyard. We love for those birds to come by and feed. But there are squirrels too and they naturally want to partake of the free meals. Like most homeowners who believe the feeders are just for the birds must then deal with the other creatures that want to share the free bounty.  Afterall, why must they not?  Indeed,  squirrels  too may wonder why they are not allowed their fair share?  They had to wonder, naturally. In their own instinctual way, if there is such a thing; I surmise.

Homeowners, bird lovers, have tried countless ways to discourage the unwanted interlopers. In my case I used a fiberglass tube (PVC) for the post for our feeder because I thought the material would be slippery enough for the squirrels to climb.  I thought wrong because squirrels had a field day to the dismay of the mourning doves, blue jays, cardinals and finches. 

After so much wondering what would work to prevent the squirrels from succeeding with their daily raids I tried several ways that failed.  I've come up with a few barriers between the bottom of the post and the platform. None worked. I wondered if the squirrels actually wondered with delight what I was going to do next.

Then, one day, I smeared the upper half of the pipe just about a foot or so below the platform of the feeder with petroleum jelly, covering about 6-8 inches of the PVC all around. That did the trick. 

Were the squirrels frustrated? Did they ever wonder why they couldn't get  the free food?  Then one day I saw one atop the feeder, its cheeks already bulging with bird seeds. I wondered how that one made it.

By the way, squirrels have excellent facial recognition memories. They know and remember me as the unwelcoming homeowner, the very antithesis of squirrel lovers who love them.  One look at me and the squirrel leaped  from the feeder down to the ground in a split-second. Do  you know that feat was the human equivalent of jumping from a four-story building? Then it scampered with quick hops, each  skip about its four body lengths.

Then I wondered how that squirrel made it up there. Didn't it ever wonder to give up after failing every attempt several times before? Apparently when it comes to food they don't remember failures. It did make me wonder but soon realized that perhaps after repeated attempts the squirrel managed to get the petroleum jelly on its paws and fur on its belly after each try.  After a while, with the help from the daily blazing sun, it succeeded in taking much of the oil away from the PVC pole.  Indeed when I checked there was little Vaseline left.  For a whole week I let the squirrels have their fun. Then I went and smeared the pole with more Vaseline.  The game continues.

And some of you will wonder how retirees spend their time.  But, yes, to continue to wonder is the very essence of curiosity.  And curiosity is what our brains prefer to have and explore if we let them. Our brains will match the level of enthusiasm we allow ourselves to engage. Keep in mind "we" refers to  our mind's preference and level of engagement; the brain is merely the tool - the data center, if you will. So, I wondered some more. This time about the flea.

Fleas can jump from rest position 100 to 200 times their body length. Does that translate to jumping up to 300 meters if it were the size of a human? Well, apparently we run into what physicists call "scaling issues".  You see, a human size flea will need more than just its skeletal structure enlarged. At the human scale, its exoskeleton has to be redesigned and made of material stronger than titanium, light as a pillow, to withstand the stresses caused by the jump, a completely different pulmonary and circulatory system, a more robust oxygen and nutrient conversion capacity, etc. before an attempt is possible. Just increasing its size is not enough because a human flea without those critical changes  may be able to  jump a mere 3-4 inches off the ground.  That was according to someone with too much spare time on his hands who put it all together with pencil and paper.  Now we wonder indeed how anyone can get their wondering go out of hand which makes it difficult to answer the question why (?).

But, here is something to ponder.  Our capacity to wonder is what and how we manage to come up with all kinds of stuff that are now part of modern life. Edison must have first wondered how to replace kerosene lamps and candles to light up our homes.  Of course that only became possible after someone else first wondered and then discovered a way to industrially produce electric power and someone else must have wondered consequently about how to get the electricity from the generating plants to the streets and homes and offices and factories.  Actually a lot of wonderings had to occur, a series of crucial steps were needed to get to the light bulb.

Now, before all of these modern amenities, must we not at least first wonder how the first cave dweller, our early ancestors, figured out how to make fire? I did wonder from one of my earlier musings about the first barbecue.  I figured Grog had run into a dead aurochs (prehistoric ancestor of the modern cow) killed by lightning. Ember from the nearby tree was still smoldering near the aurochs in the process of being the first barbecue ever.  Grog brought his entire family and friends to feast on their first cooked meat ever. Before you wonder, I must confess I was not there to witness it personally.

But I must wonder about how our ancestors figured out how to make fire when lightning strikes do not occur. Without YouTube to show them how, it must have been near impossible to start fire on their own. Hmmm, how did they do it?

Thank goodness our ancestors did figure it out. They evolved their way out of thick fur and got rid of animal skin for clothing.  However, we will never know who the first fire starter was. However, it was mastering fire that catapulted humanity's rapid intellectual evolution after that.  You see, cooked food meant better nourishment and absorption of nutrients that increased the brain's size and capacity to learn.  There is a long thesis on the subject which proves that the reason we've become the dominant species is because we are the only ones that manage to cook our food.  You see, no matter how much a lion's share is, the king still eats raw meat. The 800-pound gorilla in the room still subsists on green leaves and raw fruits, spending a lot of time doing it. 

And we must wonder how vegetarians are doing.

This was supposed to be an in depth dive into wondering; instead, as always, I manage to meander into byways that were not meant to be.  Then, I may only have managed to take the reader into something else.  Oh, well, I do need to stop here because I may already have far exceeded the reader's tolerance for a lightly powdered pastry when he or she was expecting a fully cooked meal.

Next time, it will all be  about serious wondering.  I promise.  Although it is a challenge to cover the diverse readerships who read these musings. I am surprised that aside from the West, there are far more folks reading this than those from the U.S. From places like Seychelles, Saudi Arabia, even Ukraine, Russia too, Turkiye, Vietnam and, of course, The Philippines but hardly from China, but a lot from Hong Kong. I wonder how the diversity of culture is filtering the messages I am trying to convey. The two largest number of readers are from Singapore and Brazil. Singapore has tri-lingual readers in Chinese, English and Malay but in Brazil Portuguese is the predominant language, so I wonder about that.

Hmmm.. I wonder indeed.  Till next time.