Awe

Human waves now ritualistically arise at football games, political rallies, concerts, and graduations. They tend to move clockwise and travel at a speed of twenty seats per second.

Our evolutionary shift from arboreal life to bipedal walking paved the way for awe. As we began to walk upright, our perception of the world changed; we encountered vast vistas and mysteries of what lies beyond. We became a wandering species, timing our migrations and settlements to the cycles and patterns of the sun, weather, seasons, life cycles

Americans today enjoy half as many picnics as we did two decades ago. We have one fewer dear friend in our circle of care than thirty years ago. Thirty-five to 40 percent of people report suffering from loneliness.

I believe that violence is not a solution to any problem. I believe that every person is endowed with a sacred dignity. I believe that every person is capable of changing, healing, and being restored. I pledge to respect the dignity of every person. I pledge to overcome violence with love and compassion. I pledge to accompany and support anyone aff

Darwin reasoned that the blush is a manifestation of our moral beauty, signaling that we care about the opinions of others; studies 130 years later would find that others’ blushes trigger forgiveness and reconciliation in observers—a millisecond pattern of behavior joining perpetrator and victim in a transformative dynamic at the heart of restorati

Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow and Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy. Those two books archive the big idea of U.S. history: the subjugation of people of color by a succession of social systems, from the genocide of Indigenous people to slavery to mass incarceration.

It is tempting to think that greater wealth enables us to find more awe, in the fancy home, for example, or exclusive resort, or high-end consumer goods. In fact, the opposite appears to be true, that wealth undermines everyday awe and our capacity to see the moral beauty in others, the wonders of nature, or the sublime in music or art. Our experie

Wonder, the mental state of openness, questioning, curiosity, and embracing mystery, arises out of experiences of awe.

In the state of wonder that awe produces, our thought is more rigorous and energized.