Wonderers

I realized the other day that something my son and I have in common is that we are "wonderers." We wonder a lot. He asks all the time about how things work. Often, I have no idea. At first, I looked at this as a way we are different. He asks about things I would never THINK to wonder about. I don't care how my car or email work - just that they do.

I, on the other hand, wonder how people work. Someone tells me a story about something another person has done, and my first thought (or even my first audible response) is "I wonder why he does that?" I am far more interested in the things that motivate people -like the experiences from their past that cause them to act a specific way now. I wonder how it is that one person in a family is driven and knows exactly where he or she is going while another flounders. Part of it for me is the idea that if I can figure out what is behind the behavior, maybe the person could change it (if he wanted to).

I'm sure there are Myers-Briggs applications in all this. Perhaps my son is a budding NT, while I am ever more convinced of my NF nature. Whatever it is, I find it more fun now to listen to his wonderings because I know, in a way, that I wonder just like he does.