Wonder. Being in a state of Wonder. A hugely powerful and inspiring subject here! So energized by my walk down your thought provoking, uplifting lane...
Great opener too. Pulled me right in with your actual experience.
I admit, I first went down a Halloween path of my own. Something sinister, ghostly even, lurking out there in huge pain. :)
Then circled back to your thought process and got quite excited.
Ah how I love to research, to investigate the unknown! This was my reminder, the titillating fun of it all. Life can be, is capable of an experience of great exhilaration ! :)
I've shared this Substack on Facebook. Will email it out to my contacts, as well. Will contemplate some of my own Wonder experiences and come back to share.
Hopefully some people on Facebook will do the very same!!
Thank you for this!! I am so glad it prompted fun and inspiring thoughts and memories! Thank you also for sharing, and for your kind and encouraging words, always! xoxo
A Borg moment of two minds arriving on the same idea. Stress and anxiety are crippling our culture. I have just posted a 9 minute video about this with brief commentary on finding awe in simple things. It is obviously a hot topic for these times and solutions are not obvious or universally effective. Finding awe in simple moments of your day is so worth looking for once you appreciate how much they help.
I found this very enlightening and beautifully written. This also took me back to my childhood and a specific "wonder" that I cannot and do not want to forget.
I must have been about 10 and we living in a small 1 floor house with a gently sloping roof in Castro Valley, CA. At the time Castro Valley was a small town and "light pollution" was not a thing.
During the warmer months, I'd place a ladder against roof edge and climb up and proceed to the top of the house. I'd do this 3 or 4 times a week in good weather.
Once there, I'd lie on my back and look at the stars for upwards of an hour at a time. I wondered at them. And the wondering was soothing, comforting in (to me) a magical way.
I absolutely LOVED the feeling of being small, insignificant in size, the shortness of my life expectancy and the unlimited (but unknown) possibilities open to me when measured against the cosmos. As you say, knowing that you are small almost to the point (for me) ofinsignificance humbled me.
I still find such wonder from time to time, and I'm reminded of the beauty and majesty of things around me, but I got my start when I was a kid.
I wonder (hah!) sometimes about the extra-crippling effect of COVID pushing so many people indoors and away from everything. Surely, there are things to wonder about inside, but there is so much more outside. Like your more recent writings on walking. The outdoors hold more things that we don't -- and cannot -- own or replicate. And the isolation and smallness that we feel outside is so very different than those same feelings when we're inside. Inside is also full of the systems and checklists, etc... whereas outside there is more happenstance, synchronicity, and serendipity. Just my musings after reading this! Glad you reposted (see it's from November).
Currently wondering about.... The ongoing and difficult battle of Words vs. Numbers, which always sends me back to Norton Juster's "Phantom Tollbooth" and the absence of rhyme and reason when the two are at war.
I really like your contrast between the kinds of smallness and aloneness that we experience inside versus that which we experience in nature. Complete existential inversion. Also, incredible that you are ruminating on the Phantom Tollbooth! I still have my copy from when I was small and have been ruminating on it lately too.
Wonder. Being in a state of Wonder. A hugely powerful and inspiring subject here! So energized by my walk down your thought provoking, uplifting lane...
Great opener too. Pulled me right in with your actual experience.
I admit, I first went down a Halloween path of my own. Something sinister, ghostly even, lurking out there in huge pain. :)
Then circled back to your thought process and got quite excited.
Ah how I love to research, to investigate the unknown! This was my reminder, the titillating fun of it all. Life can be, is capable of an experience of great exhilaration ! :)
I've shared this Substack on Facebook. Will email it out to my contacts, as well. Will contemplate some of my own Wonder experiences and come back to share.
Hopefully some people on Facebook will do the very same!!
Bravo and Big Love,
Nan🥰🤩💕
PS- Such a huge gift here. A wisdom winner!
Thank you for this!! I am so glad it prompted fun and inspiring thoughts and memories! Thank you also for sharing, and for your kind and encouraging words, always! xoxo
A Borg moment of two minds arriving on the same idea. Stress and anxiety are crippling our culture. I have just posted a 9 minute video about this with brief commentary on finding awe in simple things. It is obviously a hot topic for these times and solutions are not obvious or universally effective. Finding awe in simple moments of your day is so worth looking for once you appreciate how much they help.
Borg indeed! Posting your video here as it is so relevant and good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sF79KBfmPA0
I found this very enlightening and beautifully written. This also took me back to my childhood and a specific "wonder" that I cannot and do not want to forget.
I must have been about 10 and we living in a small 1 floor house with a gently sloping roof in Castro Valley, CA. At the time Castro Valley was a small town and "light pollution" was not a thing.
During the warmer months, I'd place a ladder against roof edge and climb up and proceed to the top of the house. I'd do this 3 or 4 times a week in good weather.
Once there, I'd lie on my back and look at the stars for upwards of an hour at a time. I wondered at them. And the wondering was soothing, comforting in (to me) a magical way.
I absolutely LOVED the feeling of being small, insignificant in size, the shortness of my life expectancy and the unlimited (but unknown) possibilities open to me when measured against the cosmos. As you say, knowing that you are small almost to the point (for me) ofinsignificance humbled me.
I still find such wonder from time to time, and I'm reminded of the beauty and majesty of things around me, but I got my start when I was a kid.
Thanks for the memory.
I absolutely love this story. I never knew this! And I just love that I know it now. Thank you so much for sharing that.♥️
I wonder (hah!) sometimes about the extra-crippling effect of COVID pushing so many people indoors and away from everything. Surely, there are things to wonder about inside, but there is so much more outside. Like your more recent writings on walking. The outdoors hold more things that we don't -- and cannot -- own or replicate. And the isolation and smallness that we feel outside is so very different than those same feelings when we're inside. Inside is also full of the systems and checklists, etc... whereas outside there is more happenstance, synchronicity, and serendipity. Just my musings after reading this! Glad you reposted (see it's from November).
Currently wondering about.... The ongoing and difficult battle of Words vs. Numbers, which always sends me back to Norton Juster's "Phantom Tollbooth" and the absence of rhyme and reason when the two are at war.
I really like your contrast between the kinds of smallness and aloneness that we experience inside versus that which we experience in nature. Complete existential inversion. Also, incredible that you are ruminating on the Phantom Tollbooth! I still have my copy from when I was small and have been ruminating on it lately too.