The Hidden Power of Awe: Delights of the Ordinary No. 29
Why we need more wonder? Since we are trapped in these tight shoelaces and throat-trussing neckties and have forgotten to loosen up? The January edition!
The children now noticed these two for the first time…Their faces had a new expression, especially the King’s. All the sharpness and cunning and quarrelsomeness which he had picked up as a London cabby seemed to have washed away, and the courage and kindness which he had always had were easier to see. Perhaps it was the air of the young world that had done it, or talking with Aslan, or both.
- The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis
As of now, winter is selflessly showcasing itself - bitter and biting unto the bones!
And would you believe that some of us…or maybe all of us are also growing up into these winter-y dudes, frigid-y and bony, tight-jawed, looking like a hard tree bark kind of grown-ups!
Wouldn’t you notice?
Wouldn’t you notice, that in our era of subcultures and now with a lot of AI-driven sentiments, the problems of grown-ups remain so intensely hidden that they would need a lot of mercy and grace to lay bare with courageous vulnerability? Because to be in our world that worships undamaged, non-fragmented outward sheen, so much so, to forget that we all are mostly trying to find some answer to some of the questions of life. We all are wrestling with many whimsies and need a lot of redressal from the inside to make our outside smoother.
Isn’t this dauntingly distressing?
So how come we all are now trapped in these tight shoelaces and throat-trussing neckties and have remarkably forgotten to loosen up?
Our universities fail to guide us down the easiest paths to wisdom… Rather than teaching a sense of awe, they teach the very opposite: counting and measuring over delight, sobriety over enchantment,… and that propounds a permanent presumption that to be childlike or resisting the urge to harden up is a synonym for holding to the immaturities of a child. Yet the sages have always pressed over and over again that a child-like capacity is to author inside us the vast territory of the imagination, big dreaming and the possibility to make things happen in the real world just like we would have done with our toys then.
That is the reason children have more awe moments than adults. And that is because they are so new to this world system, that it feels fantastically wonderful for children to play, follow around, discover what’s really transpiring between the butterfly and that blue-button-y flower o’er there or making it utterly ethical to run nonsensically with a shrieking yell! Every note, every leap is worth a fresh finding that unfurls a massive new world for them.
Marine biologist, conservationist, and writer Rachel Carson talks about it by saying, “A child’s world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood.”
We undoubtedly need the discipline to be determined (in our shoelaces, neckties or even in our board room) but we also have the leeway to seize the unburdened bits and create awe in between the bends. Obviously, not to jump and jolly in public places. That might be just silly as adults, yet not to forget somewhere inside that there is a secure sky above us and not merely a barren roof; there are stars, moon and sun orbiting in the galaxy and not just a drab ceiling with a fan or AC vents!
We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing. - George Bernard Shaw
The Power of Awe!
And to let you know that as grown-ups we can too make some micro-adjustments in our solemn serious world to keep the butterflies, the flowers or even NASA’s Hubble Telescope to generate in us the spirit of awesomeness.
Just very recently in January, Twelfth, Twenty Twenty-Four, NASA Hubble Space Telescope image featured a bizarre galaxy that has two galaxies in it. One galaxy is a little tilted and the other one is roundish and both are in the midst of a collision. These galaxy collisions are “monumentally energetic and dramatic events, but they take place on a very slow timescale” and these “two galaxies have a good four billion years to go before they actually meet.”
This is incredibly awe-some to know that our galaxies are in no hurry to collide and who knows in a good four billion years they may shake hands instead of colliding! :) I can only wonder in awe because four billion years is such a lengthy stretch for me to be even alive here on the earth. I imagine it is the same for you too!
Let’s still wonder!
“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is… actual beauty in the migration of the birds, the ebb and flow of the tides, the folded bud ready for the spring. There is something infinitely healing… — the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after the winter.”
- Marine biologist, conservationist, and writer Rachel Carson
What is Awe?
Ethan Kross, a psychologist at the University of Michigan, defines awe as “…when we encounter something powerful that we can’t easily explain.”
Awe can be a complex emotion to define but researchers know that it lifts our mood for certain. It cheers the child in us- no matter how hardy we become - and will smile through some wonderstruck moments. As adults marching in our disorderly world, piled up with humungous stressors our solar plexus (solar plexus is the nerve bundle in our gut) feels like being nabbed by heavy stony hands, then if you encounter something awesome and wonderful, this state of dread and dystopia cam in some measure dials itself back into miraculous serenity.
Accordingly, we have a Smile Bend of Happiness - a longitudinal study in which participants were surveyed about their happiness levels. Once childhood wonderment and its joy faded (around the age of twenty) there was a decline in happiness until the age of fifty, and then happiness started to climb again.
The curve of happiness is the shape of a smile. Youth is replete with beer, college, and making out. We then graduate to job stress trying to forge our career, and someone we love gets sick and dies. In our thirties and forties we realize we won’t be a senator or have a fragrance named after us. And then something happens — our satisfaction and happiness turns upwards as we age and realize we have so much to be grateful for.
How to Keep the Awe In Us?
By shifting our perspective! Which simply means to redirect our vision outward, beyond the self and toward something extraordinary! It can come from something grand such as the shifting tints of an aurora borealis, the Hubble galaxies, the tiny geometry of a fragile insect, or the web network of a leaf.
“Wonder is where it starts, and though wonder is also where it ends, this is no futile path. Whether admiring a patch of moss, a crystal, flower, or golden beetle, a sky full of clouds, a sea with the serene, vast sigh of its swells, or a butterfly wing with its arrangement of crystalline ribs, contours, and the vibrant bezel of its edges,…”
- Hermann Hesse
A research team from the University of Central Florida took it upon themselves to scientifically study the feeling of awe and wonder. “Some findings surprised us,” said Patricia Bockelman, a graduate research assistant [from the study]. “We’d like to think everyone experiences awe and wonder sometimes but empirically nobody is looking at this across the board.”
And that is why we should look and guard the sense of awe in us!
Because, when we all are sprinting and accomplishing a lot of things I hope that every weekend through my newsletters you are able to view the joy and delights of life through philosophical artistry and whisper some more cheers into the verbiere of our lives. We all know that nothing is neatly laid inside of us. Hence, I give you not specific solutions but a push, to dig some facts and scientific studies for you so even as we grow old we make sure to still have a child brimming inside us. Have you wondered enough so to face difficult situations with little ease? Make sure you kind of know how would you respond. Just like Anne Frank hiding in her cove during WWII said, “Everything is all right here. Spirits are improving, our super optimists are triumphant… That’s the latest news!”
Now as your weekly curator on to the collection of my faves links of the week:
To Awe: Plants are pretty and they have such a large capacity to keep our wonders refined. Tend to your plants or even if it is one, still tend to it. And if you don’t know how not to kill them then this is such a marvelous manual to help you nurture your plants.
To Joy Scroll: Andrea Love is an independent animator and director as told on her website, specializes in stop motion with needle felted wool. Her stop motion on Instagram is such a delight to watch.
To Watch: Max Stossel is a brilliant storyteller and an award-winning poet who educates users on social media. Watch the video - This Panda Is Dancing, made almost seven years ago but still stays true to our social media habits.
To End:
"I've read all the books but one
Only remains sacred: this
Volume of wonders, open
Always before my eyes."- Kathleen Raine
You may have a super optimistic and triumphant week!
- Anugrah
If you liked reading this edition then please hit the heart button. Also, compliment this piece by reading :
Delights of the Ordinary started somewhere in April of twenty-twenty-three with just two readers and now has a readership of 100+ of you. I am highly grateful for the time and room that you give me in your heart.
Delights of the Ordinary currently is a free publication. Yet it takes me many hours of effort to write and curate it. I may need lots of coffee to keep me going. You can :)
Stumbled on my publication? Explore all my previous editions here. And in case you don’t wish to spend time browsing then read the recent posts 'Tis the Season of Simple Smiles and Simple Joys along with The Fikka, Hygge and Shinrin Yoku of Slowing Down, How to Turn Your Internal Blah-Blah into Creative Reflection or read about Gratitude In Our Ordinaries.
And don’t forget to
Loved the embedded video....so relevant even after 7 years...... what have we learnt ? Still watching the screen. Time to take some action.