The Fascinating Life of John Harper

As Related by John Harper

Imagine waking each day already mid-sentence—life speaking before thought catches up. Awe, wonder, delight, and then the quiet, uncontainable “oh wow… and then this” all before morning coffee. By the time curiosity finishes tying its shoes, the day has already begun dancing.

There is a quality of innocence to it—not the innocence of ignorance, but the innocence of freshness. Experience arrives without rehearsal. Meaning has not yet hardened. The moment is allowed to be what it is before being named, sorted, or put to work.

The third step in my morning routine is deceptively simple: I open my news feed. It sounds ordinary. It isn’t. This is the moment the horse leaves the barn.

I don’t read the news to be informed. I read it to be surprised. To encounter a study that bends the mind sideways, a photograph that quietly reorganizes the heart, a paragraph that taps me on the shoulder and says, “Pay attention—this matters.” One article opens a door. Another removes the walls. Soon, the idea of a neatly planned day dissolves into a cascade of fascination, each discovery tugging the thread of the next.

This isn’t distraction; it’s ignition.

Curiosity, when alive, is not a pastime; it’s a physiological event. One insight explodes into ten questions. Those questions don’t demand answers so much as participation. They alter the taste of coffee. They change the body’s posture. They soften the edges of certainty. They retune the instrument through which the day will be played.

By mid-morning, the day is no longer a schedule. It’s a conversation. The articles I’ve encountered echo through it, not as facts to remember but as atmospheres to inhabit. Wonder leans into work. Delight interrupts seriousness. Curiosity refuses to be efficient. Productivity may wobble. Presence does not.

This is how innocence keeps returning—not as nostalgia, but as orientation. A willingness to not know yet. A trust that surprise is not an interruption but the main event. A readiness to let reality lead rather than be managed.

If there is a throughline to this life, it isn’t achievement or mastery. It’s participation. A consent to be caught off guard. A preference for aliveness over control. A quiet confidence that being moved is not a weakness but a form of intelligence.

And so the horse leaves the barn. Every morning. Gladly.
Not to escape responsibility, but to meet the day unarmored—
ready to be astonished by whatever says, next:
“Look at this.”

The world is a kaleidoscope, and I am blessed with the eyes and heart to see.

Has there ever been a more glorious day?!!