So begins a NYT article that is not about going all the way to the top of Mount Everest or about taking the tiny trouble of gazing at a sunrise. It's about tomorrow's solar eclipse and the elusive human capacity to achieve awe:
“The whole thing is very awe-ful. A-w-e,” she said, meaning full of awe.
The article must mean for us to laugh at her, no? Or is it sincerely attempting to maximize the deeper benefits of tomorrow's celestial event? Here's the article — by Elizabeth Dias, the NYT religion correspondent: "Gazing Skyward, and Awaiting a Moment of Awe/Millions of people making plans to be in the path of the solar eclipse on Monday know it will be awe-inspiring. What is that feeling?"
The eclipse taps into a primal emotion, and evokes for many a sort of mystical moment and childlike wonder....
The English word “awe” comes from early Scandinavian around the 12th century, meaning “fear, terror, dread,” at times mixed with reverence in relation to God or the divine, according to lexicographers at the Oxford English Dictionary. By the time of Shakespeare, the word was used in reference to great earthly rulers, the sense of fear mixed with reverence and wonder.
But by the 18th century, in the Age of Enlightenment, which emphasized reason and science, awe shifted from a religious context to the power and beauty of the natural world.
The semantics of the word are linked to fear, but awe is actually a positive emotion, said Dacher Keltner, a psychologist at the University of California, Berkeley, who wrote a book on awe.
“Awe is an emotion when you encounter things you don’t understand,” he said. “Wonder follows experiences of awe because you want to explain the mystery of it.”...
But we know exactly what is happening with the solar eclipse. There is no journey from fear to mystery to understanding. And to aim for awe... how can that work?
If you're aiming for awe, please don't be standing next to me cooing "The whole thing is very awe-ful. A-w-e. That means full of awe."
A year after she climbed Mt. Everest, Ms. McKelvey is still unpacking the emotion of the enormity of the mountain.
Now, I'm the one that must go into the OED. It's not right to use "enormity" like that... is it? Isn't there supposed to be something wicked about things with "enormity"?
The OED's definition 3.a is "Large size or scale; hugeness, vastness," with the added note "Use of enormity in this sense has sometimes been criticized" as exemplified by this, from 1966:
Many of you misuse the word ‘enormity’. Theodore Bernstein, managing editor of The New York Times, keeps pointing out to his staff that ‘enormity means wickedness or outrageousness, and is not normally used to denote great size.’
The oldest quote for that controversial meaning comes from 1792, from "Sequel to Adventures Baron Munchausen":
I like the "worm of proportionable enormity" so much that I'm going to quit Bernsteining about "enormity."A worm of proportionable enormity had bored a hole in the shell.
Isn't it a little upsetting to come to the conclusion that there's no way to wake people up anymore except to involve them in... some kind of a strange experience on top of Mount Everest.... [Y]ou know that the awful thing is if you really say that it's necessary to take everybody to Everest, it's really tough, because everybody can't be taken to Everest. I mean, there must have been periods in history when... in order to give people a strong or meaningful experience you wouldn't actually have to take them to Everest.... I mean, really, tell me, why do we require a trip to Mount Everest in order to be able to perceive one moment of reality, I mean... I mean, is Mount Everest more real than New York? I mean, isn't New York real? I mean, you see, I think if you could become fully aware of what existed in the cigar store next door to this restaurant, I think it would just blow your brains out, I mean... isn't there just as much reality to be perceived in a cigar store as there is on Mount Everest, I mean, what do you think, you see, I think that not only is there nothing more real about Mount Everest, I think there's nothing that different, in a certain way, I mean, because reality is...is uniform, in a way, so that if your...if your perceptions are, I mean, if your own mechanism is...is operating correctly, it would become irrelevant to go to Mount Everest, and sort of absurd....
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59 comments:
If you can't find awe in the mundane of everyday life, you are very likely to be mentally ill.
Now something is completely full of awe, that's really too much to handle. If you have some awe, that is sublime.
As they say the dose makes the poison
Tomorrow will be awesome in Madison when President Biden visits.
Ann! Use your connections and call Ben Wikler and score some tickets. You and Meade will be in awe after you personally meet our Commander-in-Chief. The Leader of the Free World!
I don't remember this level and degree of breathless hype preceding the solar eclipse in the summer of 2017, just 7 years ago. What's changed?
But by the 18th century, in the Age of Enlightenment, which emphasized reason and science, awe shifted from a religious context to the power and beauty of the natural world.
Yet today, using available technology, that "shift" is no small, it cannot be measured.
We are surrounded by awe-inspiring thongs. The unwise and frenzied need a mountain told-this-is-good piece of famous art. The awe isn't from within but a social additive, a lack that needs to be told and to tell in order to experience a fleeting sign a life again when wealth and frenzy have buried a true sense of wonder.
Don't go big. Go small. The awe is everywhere around each person if they were to find stillness and notice. Which is what I like so much about the daily sunrise pics here. It's a local awe. And it fills.
A monk once said "Stay in your cell and your cell will teach you everything." That's not about a narrow life its about becoming someone who really begins to know oneself and the world that is already present. It's about becoming someone who brings life wherever they go, not like a glutton who is always taking and trying to absorb more to fill a widening frenzied void.
Awe, shucks?
In the case of a total solar eclipse, when it's gonna be a few miles south of where you live, you can drive those few miles early in the morning, park the car in a perfect open field and sit a few hours.
In that instance, Mt. Everest comes to you.
I can totally relate.
I saw an orange flash that I will never forget as long as I live...and the colors — it is just red, and then white and then the blue is coming. It was so incredibly spiritual for me, and beautiful, my first Trump rally.
This is all so over wrought
All of this hyperventilating, is nothing more that being in the moment.
In my Grandmothers counsel, "keep your head where you hands are."
Now that the eclipse is in NY, it is a very big deal.
The Professor gets a little more curmudgeonly every day and it's delightful. She's very pithy with it.
I saw a spectacular sunrise at an even greater height once, over an unusually-perfectly-clear Greenland, plus I was sitting in First Class. It was 'awe-full' and awesome, and I was comfortably warm with a blanket and a pillow, and drinking coffee.
Besides, couldn't she just have said 'Awe-full', and saved everyone the trouble?
Paddy O said, "We are surrounded by awe-inspiring thongs...."
Good point!
"I don't remember this level and degree of breathless hype preceding the solar eclipse in the summer of 2017, just 7 years ago. What's changed?"
The path of the eclipse. All the very best people get to see this one. Which ones? The ones in big cities, from Texas to Maine. We got a corker of an eclipse in March 1970 down here in Florida, but it was cloudy. Very cloudy.
Twas ever thus.
Look down at shadows cast by things that are not the moon. They're vary sharp owing to the sun source being narrower. In fact you'll see the sun's image between shadows if the leaves are dense enough to form pinholes.
Just an old country lawyer said...
I don't remember this level and degree of breathless hype preceding the solar eclipse in the summer of 2017
The DNC-stenographers need a distraction.
“We are surrounded by awe-inspiring thongs.”
Do you live, Paddy-O? Sounds like Heaven to me!
Tomorrow Catholics will celebrate the Feast of the Annunciation, when the angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she would become the mother of God. “Let it be done unto me according to thy word.”
Meditating on that awe inspiring event is life changing.
Just an old country lawyer said...
I don't remember this level and degree of breathless hype preceding the solar eclipse in the summer of 2017, just 7 years ago. What's changed?
and J Severs answered and said...
Now that the eclipse is in NY, it is a very big deal.
It's IMPORTANT, to REALIZE, that to the NYT, things are ONLY IMPORTANT when they happen to them.
It's actually pretty awe inspiring (or at least Horrific and Terrifying) when you consider their bubble.
What do New Yorkers think about things that happen west of the Hudson? They DON'T
Awesome is in the eye of the beholder.
Amelia Island is awesome than Mt Everest every day.
"Paddy O said:
Don't go big. Go small. The awe is everywhere around each person if they were to find stillness and notice. Which is what I like so much about the daily sunrise pics here. It's a local awe."
This.
And don't miss,
Local awe.
I'm currently experiencing awe from the comfort of our home as Meade sings along with The Carpenters' "Sing a Song/Thong."
Keep your head where your hands are.
Sounds like something Auntie Em would have said to Dorothy.
But then again, it's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door.
Got no glasses? No worried. I used this last century for safe eclipse viewing.
https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/make-pinhole-projector.html
worries
Imam, ha! Some cells are better than others I guess. Especially when typing on a phone.
I am in SoCal... but 5500' up with snow on the ground outside. So thongs aren't yet out for the season.
Althouse: "Ah, yes. Thanks for the sledgehammering. We might not have figured it out, just as we might not have experienced the spiritual dimension of the sunrise unless we were hanging from a rope on the side of Mt. Everest."
Love this.
I for one look forward to the 60% chance of a thunderstorm during the time of the eclipse here in Austin. Could be worse, could be raining, as the old saying goes.
You can turn a colander upside down on a sidewalk and see the bite out of the sun, aka the eclipse, in the circular spots that shine through the colander onto the sidewalk. If the sun is shining. And if you hold the colander right. It's quite exhausting to try to capture this sight if clouds are coming and going and you won't be awe-filled. No one one will listen to your narrative, either. But YOU will have actually seen that an eclipse is going on.
[There are eclipse-eyeglasses but I do not trust them. People will try to make money off anything by saying anything.]
The most memorable eclipse I saw was when I was in junior high school in the 1980’s. It was close to total, and we took turns looking at it through a welder’s helmet.
But what was genuinely awe-inspiring was the effect it had on the landscape. Everything turned an ethereal color of green, like you sometimes see at dusk after a rainstorm. It was like the entire Earth was glowing. And for a few minutes, flocks of birds were flying just a few feet from the ground. Very memorable.
I have to work tomorrow, so can’t take a break other than to peek outside my door for a couple of minutes. I do have glasses but don’t know if I’ll need them. I’m just outside the path of totality.
Paddy O said...
Imam, ha! Some cells are better than others I guess. Especially when typing on a phone.
I am in SoCal... but 5500' up with snow on the ground outside. So thongs aren't yet out for the season.
I think we can all agree that thongs > throngs.
Paddy O said...
We are surrounded by awe-inspiring thongs
I saw an awe-inspiring thong once, on a lovely young woman walking on a beach in the Bahamas. I had accumulated so many frequent flier miles on Eastern Airlines (this was a long time ago!) doing business travel that I could fly the whole family down there and back for free. Of course, with the wife sitting next to me and two pre-school sons playing in the sand in front of me, I had to act very cool and pretend not to notice.
Sorry, Paddy, I could not resist.
But when it comes to awe-inspiring things how do you beat a brave little crocus poking up through the snow?
I'm not into experiences that cost time and money and last a very short time. Flying to whatever to see a five minute solar elipse. Going up to 10000 feet and jumping out of an airplane. Bungee jumping. Etc. too much effort for too little reward.
It'd nice to go to the top of Mt. everest, except it probably looks like the top of Mt. Raineer or 100 other mountain tops, only slightly higher and with more corpses.
Plus, I don't get a thrill out of being in danger. Whenever I've engaged in dangerous sport, I wonder why Im doing this, and when it will be over so I dont have to worry about serious injury or dying.
"The colors — it is just red, and then it is orange, and then it is yellow, and then the blue is coming. It was so incredibly spiritual for me, and beautiful."
"Then, then, man, I, I, I took another hit . . "
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnpYIYxefTw
"The article must mean for us to laugh at her, no?".
Kiddo, that's what fish say about those ridiculous "lures" the humans keep dragging through the water on a fat, obvious length of string. "That's supposed to be a joke, right? No half-bright carp could imagine for even a second that -- oh, look! A snack! Mine! I saw it first!"
"Sorry, Paddy, I could not resist."
With such an invitation how could you resist? Your wife might have other thoughts!
Yes.. it's the throngs that we should avoid!
@Big Mike
Black earth becoming yellow crocus
Is undiluted hocus-pocus.
- Piet Hein
I mean... isn't there just as much reality to be perceived in my navel as there is on Mount Everest, I mean, what do you think, you see, I think that not only is there nothing more real about Mount Everest, I think there's nothing that different, in a certain way, I mean, because reality is like, I mean…
Dave Begley said...
Tomorrow will be awesome in Madison when President Biden visits.
That does seem awful.
So was that a $50k sunrise? $100K?
I get some crazy beautiful sunsets driving down the hill into my neighborhood on most evenings for the price of gas...
Hanging from a rope implies that someone else did the dangerous work of putting the rope above this person.
"Gazing Skyward, and Awaiting a Moment of Awe/Millions of people making plans to be in the path of the solar eclipse on Monday know it will be awe-inspiring. What is that feeling?"
Likely severe pain as the sun permanently burns your retina, leaving a dark spot in your eye(s).
‘To see a World in a Grain of Sand and a Heaven in a Wild Flower, hold Infinity in the palm of your hand and Eternity in an hour.’
Blake was pretty effing spiritual, and he probably never went to Mt. Everest. Spiritual gobbledegook is a heavy burden.
But I do have a nice microscope, and I do get carried away looking at small infinities, as far as small infinities apply to a quantum universe.
Dave Begley said...
Tomorrow will be awesome in Madison when President Biden visits.
Ann! Use your connections and call Ben Wikler and score some tickets. You and Meade will be in awe after you personally meet our Commander-in-Chief. The Leader of the Free World!
Biden is leading the world's best economy, a condition that makes Trump the dunce that he is and always will be, while enduring his stay in Miami's newly named Donald J. Trump Federal Correctional Institution. Secret Service security will be displaced by uniform-wearing Federal Correctional Officers.
“Biden is leading the world's best economy”
Yes, right off a cliff.
Best sunrise I ever saw - truly a mystical experience - was at Haleakala in Hawaii. Didn’t realize how freezing it would be though.
And then Gadfly has to come along and ruin the moment for everyone. You are not awesome, Gadfly.
All the sunrises I'm alive for are pretty great.
The one place in nature that gives me a sense of awe is standing at the edge of the ocean. The sound of the waves, the smell of the air. The sea is vast and deep, and it's completely indifferent to me. I seldom get to the ocean, but when I do, there is awe.
People say that if I am fully attentive to ordinary life in the present moment, then I'd be in a constant state of wonder, but this has never been my experience. Awe is rare.
Shorter gadfly: Moe, Larry, cheese! … Moe, Larry, cheese! …
The most important thing is the awesome selfies everyone will take. They're gonna remember them for the rest of the week.
Didn't "awesome" and "awful" mean the same thing at some point in time?
Natures majesty is breath taking but i dont know what she was doing
'Biden is leading the world's best economy...'
You realize that every jobs number has been revised down when nobody is looking, and that all the jobs gains are either part-time and/or going to illegals.
I want some of what you're smoking.
JFC.
I doubt she was intending her readers to laugh at her pompous and silly prose. A line from a Cars song comes to mind: “You think you’re so illustrious you call yourself intense.”
"The article must mean for us to laugh at her, no? Or is it sincerely attempting to maximize the deeper benefits of tomorrow's celestial event?"
if you're sufficiently inclusive, "us" is big enough that the answer is "both"
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