Awe
In Awe: The Delights and Dangers of Our Eleventh Emotion, neuropsychologist Paul Pearsall defines awe as an “overwhelming and bewildering sense of connection with a startling universe that is usually far beyond the narrow band of our consciousness.” And not surprisingly, this nature-inspired awe is also good for our health. A landmark study by Jenn
... See moreFrank Forencich • The Art is Long: Big Health and the New Warrior Activist
Awe is the emotion we experience when we encounter vast mysteries that we don’t understand.
Dacher Keltner • Awe
do strive as individuals, but we are also part of something larger than ourselves, with a complex physiology and mental life that we carry out but only dimly understand.
Howard Bloom • The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition into the Forces of History
Keltner became convinced that awe could be a counteragent to these immiserating modern neuroses. Notably, not a single respondent in Berkeley’s 26-culture study cited consumer purchases as the source of their awe-story. In “Awe,” Keltner writes: “Awe occurs in a realm separate from the mundane world of materialism, money, acquisition and status sig... See more
on the emotion of awe in which we argued that awe is triggered by two simultaneous perceptions: first, that what you are looking at is vast in some way, and, second, that you can’t fit it into your existing mental structures.[30] That combination seems to trigger a feeling in people of being small in a profoundly pleasurable—although sometimes also
... See moreJonathan Haidt • The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness
