Meet Marcus Smith | Host of the Constant Wonder Podcast

We had the good fortune of connecting with Marcus Smith and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Marcus, Let’s talk about principles and values – what matters to you most?
After sixty orbits around the sun, there’s something I’ve finally figured out about myself, and it’s huge. And it has resulted in the “Constant Wonder” podcast that I host. I should have realized this much sooner, because it’s not all that complicated: the huge thing is that I simply have never felt like anything in this world is “normal.” Nothing should ever be viewed as ordinary, routine, or commonplace. Everything, absolutely everything—from the smallest subatomic particle to the grand cosmos filled from beginning to end with galaxies—from family and friends to nature and sky and rocks, from music and architecture to other contributions of art and culture—even just the basics of water, air, food, our bodies, plants, and light—anything and everything is an impossible gift.

So if you make the phenomenal or real world square one in your thinking, and consider it thoroughly and honestly—with all it contains and all that exists—you begin to see the opposite of normal everywhere. You begin to see the wondrous. People may call it miraculous, or beautiful, or sublime, or divine, or beyond words. Whatever you call it, a fully honest assessment of our not-at-all-normal situation of existing on this planet will always bring the experience of awe. But as a guiding principle, it’s not enough merely to arrive at awe. What will you do with it? Where does it lead you? If our assessment is dishonest, if our experience is casual or unserious, then neither can this supposed awe ever make us humble or grateful or benevolent. It will never work as a catalyst within in us in any kind of meaningful or significant way. You’ve got to care completely about the miraculous gifts that are found in, around, and throughout our lives.

If you start with this fundamental, caring realization about where we truly find ourselves in the universe, in the middle of creation (obviously, we are ourselves part of creation), then it’s not hard to deduce what kind of living you must adopt and what your bedrock perspective must be. A few years ago I decided I would call this perspective “Constant Wonder,” and it was a great fit as a podcast title. CW is a show situated smackdab in the middle of a quest: You must change your life daily, by engaging in a humbling search for wonder wherever you encounter it. By the way, it’s totally on us to recognize the wondrousness of all things, yield to it, be present to it, and ultimately land in a place of reverence rather than arrogance.

I’m not a trained philosopher, and I’m certainly no scientist, but I concur with Einstein’s expression about this: “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.”

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
Producing a podcast like Constant Wonder is a perfect fit for me, because my art and craft are all subsumed in the idea of composition, which literally means “putting stuff together.” The beauty artists try to assemble can only ever be a small mirror of the infinitely larger beauty of universal creation. All artists, including podcasters, are teeny tiny little creators in comparison to the vast universe. Anyway, wordsmithing and musical composition were my mainstays after college. My career has included work in print and translation and music composition and classical music radio hosting. Because of my current work with the Constant Wonder podcast, the hat most people have come to recognize on my head is the interviewer’s hat. I love interviewing people. It’s an art that has become my stock in trade. The best experiences I ever have behind a microphone are when a Constant Wonder guest suddenly experiences an epiphany, right in the middle of being interviewed. A light bulb goes on for them for the very first time, right in the middle of our conversation. That only happens when you relate to a guest as a full person with a unique heart, mind, and soul—rather than as just another “booking.” I love those moments.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Okay, I’m an interviewer, right? Which means I like to have lots and lots of conversation. And I’m a big believer in facilitating conversations, avoiding distractions. That means things that would compete for attention and pull us away from conversation. As much as I like these things, I have to stipulate: no theater, no concert attendance, no sitting silently while someone on stage entertains. The best thing to do, the only thing to do, is to walk or be fully present together. Walk in the woods, walk in a canyon, walk on a mountain, always attuned to wonder and prepared to experience awe. Walk by a river, walk in a museum, walk in a park or garden. Walk, walk, walk. It’s the single best thing that modernity has tried to strip away from us. When walking together you have a chance to relate in a stunningly meaningful way, both to the person you’re with and the universe around you. With a full day at our disposal, we would leave the city for a place in the back country that feels timeless, goal-less, as pristine as possible. Above tree line at 11,000 feet. Or in Utah’s Red Rock Country. And when arriving back in town, because we would be hungry, we’d look for some fine fare at a quiet Indian restaurant. In a quiet place, you also get to talk.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I won’t discriminate here by offering a shoutout for currently living people only. I’m thinking of any great role model, living or dead, who has pursued wonder constantly and been willing to speak up about it. I’ve already mentioned Einstein. But I could mention poets and prophets, thinkers, philosophers, and musicians from far in the past: the writer of various Psalms or thoughtful sermons, poets like Rilke, Wordsworth, John Donne, Gerard Manley Hopkins, musicians from Hildegard von Bingen to Brahms and the Beatles, old-fashioned cultural commentators like art critic John Ruskin or the 20th-century botanist Liberty Hyde Bailey. Religious thinkers like the Rabbi Abraham Heschel. And living voices too: novelist Marilynne Robinson, agrarians Wendell Berry and Norman Wirzba, naturalists Robert MacFarlane, Robin Wall Kimmerer. You see, my list would go on and on, always with people who put spirituality above satisfaction, reverence above entertainment, sacred experience above money. Above all, I admire the voices who speak up for fostering and nurturing life on earth, not just pragmatically and selfishly (so that nothing gets in the way of our consumerist bucket lists), but as a profound spiritual and religious duty of stewardship for the gifts of creation. I like the people who see the earth not as a theme park but as a temple.

Website: https://www.byuradio.org/constantwonder

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/constantwonderpodcast/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ConstantWonderPodcast

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@constant-wonder