You’d think all the information flooding our lives would kill our sense of wonder. No doubt it does for some people, though to know for sure we’d also need to know how robust their sense of wonder was in the first place. Some things are harder to kill than others.

Today, I had a forcible reminder of just how the Internet feeds my wonder instead of killing it off. I’d decided my listen-on-the-way-to-work CD this morning would be an old favorite from the 80’s, Big Plans For Everybody by Let’s Active, a power-pop band from Winston-Salem, North Carolina whose albums sold hardly at all but whose influence stretched as far as Robert Plant, who was a huge fan. So there I am, listening raptly (but still practicing good defensive driving) to what would have been side one of the LP, then picking up where I left off for the journey home this afternoon. I do love this album. I have very fond memories of seeing Mitch and the band live just after the album came out. And I found myself wondering where he was now, and what he was doing, and whether his life had helped him reflect on just how important his work had been despite fame’s proving elusive for him.

And of course I thought to myself, “I’ll have to Google Let’s Active when I get home, just to see what I can find.”

And I found this great interview in which Mitch reflects on his own experience, and thereby helps me reflect on my experience, too.

Did my score satisfy me? Yes and no. Yes, in that I found exactly what I wanted. No, in that finding what I wanted awakened even more wonder in me as I thought about wanting to get to know the earlier albums better, and about the band Mitch now leads, and about trying harder to learn the lyrics and music to “Badger,” my favorite Let’s Active song.

In short, my appetite for wonder in this instance, being fed so handsomely, is stronger that it was to begin with. Something marvelously recursive is at work in this world, though whether it will last is anyone’s guess. And of course all this may be a nostalgic stroll through the World Wide Attic for me.

Still, I wonder. Is there no quickening or enduring clarity to be gained from this network of souls whose language we see with such strength and persistence on these “pages”?