Living an Awe-Filled Life
Sweet Bites for November 8, 2024
Hi all,
Welcome to another edition of Sweet Bites, Mind Candy’s bite-sized newsletter with thought-provoking finds to send you into the weekend with.
This week we explored the emotion of awe.
Mind Candy is a reader supported newsletter and it is through your generous support I am able to continue this. Please consider upgrading to access the full archives (150+ articles) and support my work.
🦉 Wisdom
“In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life—no disgrace, no calamity (leaving me my eyes), which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground—my head bathed by the blithe air and uplifted into infinite space—all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or parcel of God. The name of the nearest friend sounds then foreign and accidental; to be brothers, to be acquaintances, master or servant, is then a trifle and a disturbance. I am the lover of uncontained and immortal beauty.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Source: Nature
💭 Thought to Reflect On
Awe is not some grand event that will smack us over the head and say here I am, enjoy me!
Rather, awe is found in the every day, in the things we take for granted, in the things we’re too busy to stop and look deeper at.
If we want to find more awe, maybe we need to stop and look for it right before our eyes.
📚 This Week’s Monday Meditation
The Awe of Life
Mind Candy is a newsletter on practical philosophy and human flourishment—aka how to live the “the good life.” Each month we tackle a new theme.
✏️ This Week’s Wednesday Wisdom
Find Stillness, A View from Above, & Nature’s Immensity
Wednesday Wisdom is 3x3 Newsletter where I distill worldly advice for better living with 3 quotes, 3 observations, and 3 questions.
📰 Article Worth a Read
The Power of Everyday Awe by Eben Harrell
Borrowing heavily from Dacher Keltner (whose book Awe is recommended below), Harrell explores how awe can impact our daily lives.
📖 Book to Dive Deeper into Awe
Awe by Dacher Keltner
Keltner is one of the leading individuals currently researching the emotion of awe. In his book, he explored the history of the emotion, what its impact on our lives is, and how we can better cultivate it for ourselves.
🧘🏼♂️ Carl Sagan’s Awe
In the below video, Carl Sagan perfectly captures what it means to be alive, and in so doing, reminds us of the awe of life.
