The one thing I hope my new grandchildren never lose

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Dear Sasha and Penelope,

Since you entered the world just eight weeks ago (first Sasha then, eight minutes later, Penny), I have watched a whole range of human feelings pass over your small faces. Anger. Distress. Fear. Hunger. Contentment. Amusement, expressed in the first traces of a genuine smile.

My favourite, I think, is simple astonishment. Every now and then, in your short windows of wakefulness, your eyes grow wide and your mouths open to form a look of what I can only call pure wonder. Perhaps you are only perplexed by the shapes and colours your developing vision perceives, but I like to think that you are beginning to see what a marvelous, mysterious place this world is.

Hold onto that feeling. If I can give you one piece of grandfatherly advice, let it be that: Don’t lose your sense of wonder.

Wonderment will come naturally to you at first, when everything is new. You will watch delighted at how a squirrel bounds from branch to branch, laugh when the neighbour’s cat brushes past your leg, stop to listen when a cardinal performs its virtuoso song on the backyard fence. My fondest hope is to see you discover some of these everyday miracles.

But these feelings will fade over time. An invisible film will cover your eyes. Like the guy who cuts the grass next to Niagara Falls, you will cease to be impressed by the thundering cataract of marvels that surrounds you.

Do your best to resist this process. Those who stop being astonished by the world around them are missing out. The dullest people in the world are those who think they have seen it all. The best people stay curious and open to being surprised. Wonderment will see you through even the hardest times.

Retaining this power will take conscious effort, especially in this anxious era. Bombs were falling from the sky as you were lying in your hospital bassinet. Dark forces were gathering in parts both near and far. Recent forest fires and floods seemed to foreshadow a bleak future.

Try to see beyond the headlines and appreciate the world as it truly is: a place of both horrors and of marvels. People are capable of achieving the most incredible things.

Thanks in part to the ingenuity of science, the world just came through a terrible pandemic. Humankind is vanquishing some of its greatest scourges, from famine to illiteracy to water-borne disease.

In the year I was born, the average person entering this world could not expect to live beyond the age of 50. Now the average life expectancy is around 73 years – higher in lucky countries like ours.

You two may well live to 100. Imagine all the breakthroughs you will see. Just the other day, this newspaper reported that a new kind of internet-linked spectacles powered by artificial intelligence is helping the blind navigate the world.

You don’t need to put on rose-coloured glasses to see these things; clear ones will do fine. A fully aware person can be both angered at the injustice of the world and staggered by its progress. Strive to be one of those people.

One of my personal heroes, George Orwell, is known best for his vivid warnings about hate-filled ideologies, a threat that looms again today. Yet he did some of his best writing about simple pleasures such as fishing in a quiet pond and making a good English cup of tea. It was he who once wrote that: “To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.”

All kinds of things will conspire to crush your sense of wonder: the worries of everyday life, the distractions of hyperactive media, the inevitable dimming that comes with age.

Fight back. Keep your eyes and ears open. Watch the world pass by. Listen to the cardinal’s song outside the window. Watch the squirrels tumble through the branches. Don’t ever stop being amazed. For all its troubles and strife, it is still a wonderful world.