I want to know things. That quest for knowledge we had when we were kids still burns strong. And travel and adventure is a great teacher.

On Saturday night, I was able to join Backyard Docs on their adventure to show amazing documentaries in unique locations. This year’s festival showcased The Haunting of Pennhurst, a recently released documentary on the former institution outside of Philadelphia in a former convent. Talk about an adventure!

Put an old building in front of me and I’ll want to know when it was built, who lived there and why the third-floor windows don’t match the rest of the building. Give me a historical marker and I’ll read the whole thing. Let me discover an abandoned railroad grade in the woods and there’s a good chance I’ll spend part of the evening trying to figure out where the railroad went.

I consider this a healthy form of curiosity. I know I’m not alone after a wonderful discussion with a friend I have not seen in several years of how he has relearned to navigate by watershed.

The problem may be that I now carry a device in my pocket capable of answering almost any question I encounter. I can stand in front of a building I’ve never seen before, type a few words and know its history before I’ve even walked around it. That’s an extraordinary thing.

I’m just not sure it’s always a good thing. Not because the information is bad. I love the information. The problem is that sometimes I get the answer before I’ve really had a chance to enjoy the question.

There was a time when travel involved considerably more mystery. You might notice something unusual along the road and have no idea what it was. Maybe you’d ask someone. Maybe you’d find a brochure later. Maybe you’d get home and look it up.

Or maybe you’d never know. The mystery might travel home with you. Now the distance between curiosity and explanation can be about nine seconds. I’ve started wondering whether we should occasionally make it longer.

Before You Look It Up

Imagine you’re walking through an unfamiliar town and notice an old building with a strange symbol carved above the entrance. Your hand reaches for the phone. Don’t. Not yet.

Look at the building. What was it originally? A bank? A theater? A lodge? Why is that symbol there? Is it decoration? A company logo? Something connected to a fraternal organization? Is there a date hidden somewhere in the stonework?

Walk around the building. Look up. Old buildings frequently save their best clues for people willing to look above the storefronts. Maybe there’s a name carved near the roof. Perhaps one side reveals a bricked-over doorway. You might notice that the windows on the upper floors are enormous, suggesting that whatever happened up there required a lot of natural light.

Now make a guess. It can be an educated guess. It can also be completely ridiculous. It also can be something you entirely create from your imagination. Buildings can be a blank canvas for a story. Perhaps the building was headquarters for a secret society of traveling magicians who met every third Tuesday unless there was a full moon.

Then look it up. The answer becomes more interesting because you’ve already been paying attention. Instead of simply receiving information, you’re comparing what you discovered with what actually happened.

You were right about the windows. Completely wrong about the magicians. But that could be your next story.

The Space Between Question and Answer

There’s something else happening in those few minutes. You’re present. You’re not looking through your phone at the building. You’re looking at the building. You’re noticing the stone, the windows, the shape of the roof, the neighboring structures and how everything fits together. That’s a form of mindfulness I like because it doesn’t require us to stop being curious. It asks us to become more curious.

Pay attention before asking for the answer. I think we’ve become uncomfortable with not knowing things. A question appears and we immediately want to close it. What is that? Who built it? Where does that trail go? Why is that town called that? Who was that person?

Answers are satisfying. They finish things.

Wonder does the opposite. Wonder opens things.

It invites another question and then another. It makes you walk around the corner because you noticed something strange. It makes you look more closely at a photograph. It makes you stop the car because you just passed a sign for something you’ve never heard of.

Wonder is one of adventure’s oldest fuels. We shouldn’t be too quick to burn through it.

Five Minutes

So this week’s Adventurer’s Challenge requires almost no equipment. You don’t need hiking boots. You don’t need a backpack. You don’t even have to go anywhere particularly adventurous.

Just wait. The next time you encounter something that makes you curious, give yourself five minutes before looking it up.

Study it.

Ask questions.

Look for clues.

Make a guess.

Let yourself be wrong.

Then find the answer.

Maybe you’ll discover that your theory was completely ridiculous. Maybe you’ll discover that you noticed something important. Occasionally, the real story will be stranger than anything you invented. Those are my favorites.

Either way, you’ve done something we don’t do as often as we used to. You’ve spent a little time wondering.

And in a world where the answer to almost everything is waiting in our pockets, perhaps not knowing for five minutes can become its own small adventure.