Understanding Awe

You know that feeling you get when you're out in the country and you look up at the night sky full of stars? When the moon sits low in the sky and glows bright orange, looking like a giant copper coin on the horizon? You know that feeling when you think about how tiny we are in the vastness of space? I call that feeling "awe". Awe can come from so many different things -- ocean views or children laughing. Each person gets this feeling from different things, the chemical reaction in your brain triggered by its own unique neural path developed during your entire life.

For me,  awe comes from love a lot of the time. I wouldn't be surprised if this was the same for a lot of people, especially those that tend to equate awe with the feeling of loving their deity (ies), and vice versa.  

As I observe those around me, think about the truly significant things in my life that have affected my spirituality and understanding of religion, I have come to determine that it is important to understand what makes me feel awe. I learn to be capable of differentiating when an experience is my brain telling me to feel awe or of it is somehow unique -- more spiritual in some way.  

I started thinking about this when I heard about something called "noetic science". Noetic Sciences are those that integrate health, healing, and the human potentials; it researches meditation, consciousness, spirituality, psychic abilities and the survival of consciousness after bodily death, as the article linked above explains. In other words: I am totally interested in this shit! 

In the wikipedia article I linked there is a story about the history of the Institute for Noetic Sciences, where one of the co-founders, Edgar Mitchell, a former astronaut, explains that when he saw the earth from orbit, "the presence of divinity became almost palpable, and [he] knew that life in the universe was not just an accident based on random processes ... The knowledge came to [him] directly". 

It made me think a lot about how I would feel if I saw the earth from that perspective with my own eyes.  I imagine that I would, too, feel something so magnificent -- a whole new understanding of how small I really am. That moment in my life would be remembered forever, I'm sure. I, like Mitchell, sometimes feel the tendency to push those experiences into the divine or unknown spectrum.  I would probably feel just like Mitchell did. This is why it is so important to be aware of what makes me feel awe; I hold every single divine inspiring, life-changing, perspective altering experience under a magnifying glass to understand why I feel that way and what is making me drift towards this line of thought. Learning something new about what I allow to manipulate my emotions allows me to objectively discern certain moments in my life. I'm skeptical about most paranormal or religious things, and while I love the idea of those beliefs being real and a part of the reality that we're all still trying to understand, I MUST be critical  in order to find the truth.

 I think that Mitchell derived a sense of awe from the experience of seeing the earth from its own orbit. I think he interpreted this feeling of awe through the lens of his belief system instead of considering that the feeling just came from the dopamine inducing experience of learning.But maybe I'm wrong! Maybe Mitchell understands the things that bring him the feeling of awe and the experience truly was divine! I don't know for sure; I do know that his experience made me call into question the experiences I've had in my own life that evoked awe. 

Awe is a beautiful feeling, and I encourage everyone to understand where they derive it from. Figure that out, and you can always make yourself feel better when you're feeling low. 

Goodbye 38 Studios

I took a week to mourn. I'm still mourning, but I'm ready to move on.

Finding a new job is going to be extremely difficult for me. I don't have nearly as much experience as all of the others whom I worked with, and right now we're all going after those same few positions out there.

All I can do is hope.

For a more eloquent and emotionally charged version of the post above, please read this by Steve Danuser. To Steve, you helped to craft a world I fell in love with, and I am so grateful that I got to help shape it with you.