awe
i think a lot
about the contrast between banality and wonderbetween disengagement and radiant ecstasyabout being unaffected by the here and nowbeing absolutely ravished emotionally by itand i think one of the problems for human beings is mental habitsonce we create a comfort zone we rarely step outside of that comfort zonebut the consequence of that is a phenomenon known as edonic (?) adaptationover stimulation to the same kind of thing the same stimuli again and again and againrenders said stimuli invisibleyour brain has already mapped it in its own headand you no longer literally have to be engaged by thatwe have eyes yet see notears that hear notand hearts that neither feel nor understandthere’s a great book called the wondering brainit says that one of the ways that we elicit wonder is by scrambling the self temporarilyso that the world can seep inhew (?) miller says – in a blade of grass when given proper attention becomes an infinitely magnificent world in itselfdarwin said attention if sudden and close graduates in surprise and gives (>) into astonishmentgives into a stupified amazementthat’s what rapture isthat’s what illumination isthat’s what that sort of infinite comprehending awe that human beings love so muchand so how do we do thathow do we mess with our perceptual apparatus in order to have the kind of emotional and esthetic experience from life that we render most meaningfulcause we all know those moments are therethose are the moments that would make final cutonly in these moments we experience afresh the hardly bearable ecstasy of direct energy exploding on our nerve endingsthis is the rhapsodic ecstatic bursting forth of awethat extends our perceptual parameters beyond all previous limitsand we literally have to reconfigure our mental models of the world in order to assimilatethe beauty of that downloadthat is what it means to be inspiredthe greek root of the term means tobreathe inahhto take it in
we fit the universe through our brain and it comes out in a form of nothing less than poetrywe have a responsibilitytoawe
..
He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.
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the things people do become normal when they can’t be shamed into silence about doing them.
once we dispense w shame, we are liberated to experience the full, sacred, unlikely wackiness of being human..
the state of awe may be the pinnacle of human experience. if humans’ unique job in nature is to be conscious, what more human thing can we do than blow our observing minds?.. view from mountaintop, witnessing birth of child, starry night, or standing w thousands in march/celebration, all dissolve the sense of self as separate and distinct..
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new experiments have revealed that after just a few moments of awe, people behave w increases altruism, cooperation and self sacrifice.. the evidence suggests that awe makes people feel like part of something larger than themselves.. makes them more attuned to needs of those around them..
unfortunately..opps to experience awe in modern society are becoming more scarce.. and/or *exploited..
*shiny ness
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true awe comes w no agenda .. it’s not directed toward some end/plan/person; there’s not time limit or foe to vanquish. there is no ‘other’.. true awe is timeless, limitless, and w/o division. it suggests there is a unifying whole to which we all belong – if only we could hold onto that awareness..
thurman interconnectedness law: when you understand interconnectedness it makes you more afraid of hating than of dying – Robert Thurman (@BobThurman)
be you. 