There are many events in our lives that can disturb us, throwing us into despair and upsetting our vision of the future. But there are also powerful tools that can help us recalibrate our worldview to lead us to look to the future again with optimism.
by Eben Harrell
As an example, in April 2020, I received a phone call informing me of the unexpected death of a dear family member. I went outside to get some air and, overcome with pain, I started crying uncontrollably. Looking up at the night sky, I imagined what I would look like from the perspective of someone thousands of light years away: a puny figure grappling with the mysteries of existence. Far from inflaming my pain, the vision showed me a way out. At that point I did something rather peculiar for me, since I'm not religious: I knelt down. I bowed my head. Through my tears, I told the universe that I didn't understand its rules, but that I would never try to understand them again. I submitted. I was reminded of a line from a poem by TS Eliot I had read in college: "The rest doesn't concern us".
I didn't know it at the time, but I was having a textbook experience of awe, a unique emotion that Dacher Keltner, a psychologist at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life, defines the "feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends your current understanding of the world." In fact, the “panoramic effect” – imagine yourself or the world from a great distance – is one of the most reliable ways to evoke awe.
And I'm not the only one who has found solace in these tumultuous recent years. Indeed, it seems that the wonder is having a moment of glory. If it zeitgeist pre-Covid was all about “grit” and the “growth mindset”, many of us are now looking to clear our minds and find a greater peace to better face the future. And this, according to a number of recent and forthcoming books, is something that can help develop awe and wonder. Although many had predicted that the pandemic would end with a new period of the "roaring twenties" type, characterized by wild parties and reckless laxity, the reality has turned out to be more complicated and solemn. Humanity has many losses to process.
Keltner has written the perfect guidebook for this journey, weaving together the discoveries he and his disciples have made since he pioneered the scientific study of amazement 20 years ago that reported highly personal – and sometimes heartbreaking and tender – meditations on death of his brother Rolf. Keltner explains that amazement is different from the fear or appreciation of beauty, although both may be present when stupor is experienced. Manhattan Project scientists felt awe during Trinity's test of the first nuclear bomb, but even the latest YouTube phenomenon, Paul "Bear" Vasquez, was ecstatic at the sight of a double rainbow outside his California mountain home.
To experience awe, Keltner says, we must look for the "eight wonders of life." The most common are nature, music, visual design and moral beauty (when we see people helping other people). Less common, but often more profound, are "collective effervescence" (what fans cheering together in a stadium feel), spiritual experiences, epiphanies (when we learn something unexpected that changes our view of the world), and , of course, births and deaths, the beginnings and ends of life.
Feeling amazement produces a multitude of positive effects. It makes us calmer, kinder, more creative, and less likely to cheat. It curbs the ego and makes us feel more connected to the earth and to other creatures. And above all, it makes us more capable of being optimistic and of preparing ourselves to face the unexpected with strength and good humor. In an experiment conducted by Keltner, visitors to a viewpoint in Yosemite National Park who were asked to draw art doodles looked smaller in their photos than visitors to downtown San Francisco, suggesting a lower sense of self-esteem.
In another experiment, volunteers asked to look at huge eucalyptus trees asked to be paid less for their participation than those asked to stare at an academic building and were more willing to help raise the pens dropped by a studio organizer who faked the fall. But the strongest endorsement of the healing effects of amazement is Keltner's account of how he used it to process his own pain: from the raw emotion he felt watching Rolf's last breath to the comfort he drew months later watching a massive alpine in constant evolution and perceiving the permanent presence of the brother. "There are still wonders and mysteries," Keltner writes. "And… he's still part of it."
While one can infer from Keltner's book how to experience awe, other resources are more prescriptive. In The Wonder Paradox: Embracing the Weirdness of Existence and the Poetry of Our Lives, poet and historian Jennifer Michael Hecht selects appropriate poems for awe-inspiring life events, from weddings to births. In the fascinating and wide-ranging book The Power of Wonder: The Extraordinary Emotion That Will Change the Way You Live, Learn, and Lead, Coach Monica C. Parker recommends taking “wonder walks” that echo nature writer Rachel Carson’s advice to open your eyes to “unseen beauty” and ask yourself: “What if I've never seen her before? What if I know I'll never see him again?".
In The Power of Awe: Overcome Burnout and Anxiety, Ease Chronic Pain, Find Clarity and Purpose-in Less than 1 Minute Per Day, coach and mentor Jake Eagle and Michael Amster, a physician, are inspired by Keltner's work to introduce a technique, similar to Carson's, to "microdose" amazement. For those looking for a more effective dose, scientists at Google and Berkeley have created the Art Emotions Map website, featuring images of famous works of art that elicit certain feelings, including awe (example: Vesuvius erupting, by Joseph Mallord William Turner). On Mapping Emotion, a site created by another former Berkeley researcher, Alan Cowen, you can watch GIFs that have been shown to evoke the same reaction (like that of skydivers all flying together).
For most of us, encounters with wonder are rare, but they don't have to be. As Keltner, the other authors and Carson cogently argue, we can break the monotony of everyday life simply by looking with new eyes, which allow us to discover the wonder in everyday things – what the playwright Christopher Marlowe described as “infinite riches in a small room.” With this perspective, we can experience awe not only looking at the stars, but also at the stardust that makes up everything, even the most mundane objects on Earth. As science writer Carl Sagan once said, "If you want to make apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe." Isn't that a fantastic thought?
Eben Harrell is senior editor of the Harvard Business Review in Boston.
