Have you ever had the pleasure of showing someone your favorite movie only to look over and find them deeply engaged with their phone? I promise, your favorite movie is not that bad. We just can’t help ourselves these days. It seems the awe of humanity is everywhere except in the room with us. Whether that be the silver screen or your living room, it’s always somewhere else and we always have to go get it. That’s why scrolling was made to be linear. Instead of scouring for awe across finite layers of internet, we are force-fed it with an infinite straight razor. Down it goes with minimal sugar. And we ask for more.

Until one day, when you’re by yourself with a book or the stars or listening to a new song or looking at a great old building, you feel a moment of true discovery and oneness with time. With yourself and the universe, or God if you’d like. As if the chaotic order of the world gifted you this experience and held your hand while you opened it. You have a Moment of Awe. The loneliness of the searching slips away and is replaced with the joy of finding. It happens a lot in college. When you’re encouraged to seek answers to beautiful questions, you have these fearsome revelations and standstills. The world feels huge. Then you start working 60-hour weeks and wonder how many of The Moments you’ve missed to snack plate videos. If you’re like me, it’s crushing. I love to read. I have The Moments every other page when I read Rilke. Even blogs give me Moments sometimes. Anne Lammott says, “writing is giving”. The Moments are successful takings. You just have to be receptive. This takes practice.

Therein lies the challenge. How to open up to the scattered real world when crawling into the linear one feels so good that it has become automatic. In “A Responsibility to Awe”, author and astronomer Rebecca Elson remarks, “Sometimes as an antidote / To fear of death, / I eat the stars”. It seems we all hold that fear of death in our hands daily. The straight razor of algorithms is a real anxiety-inducer. We raise the fear to our faces, then raise the volume when the fear promises us a few stars to munch on. Clearly, we have it all wrong. We have Cronenberg’d the fear of death and its antidote into one. We scroll in search of stars because the scrolling has plunged us into darkness. The problem becomes its own solution.

We must then ask ourselves, are the little gems in my feed (That Dodo story about the 3-legged puppy that made me cry, the cool science fact about ‘Oumuamua, the scene from “Crashing” that makes my heart flutter, etc.) actually worth it? Are those stars bright enough to light up my dark bedroom? Are they Moments of Awe at all? In short, no. A Moment of Awe is not to be caught, it is to be discovered. You must truly immerse yourself in something, something colossal in impact, and thus be interrupted by the feeling for it to have an effect. As we know, an algorithm handing you emotionally-moving content is not discovery, it is pre-determined exchange. A like for a post well-recommended. So, The Moments cannot be caught, but they can be had, discovered, studied. Eaten.

That’s what I propose. You have to chew. Ponder. Write stuff down. Talk through your thoughts on a recording and never show anyone. I am maintaining the assumption that you are an average human, so spending the day outside or reading a book on a habitual basis may prove difficult for you (you are not alone in this), which means you are probably in need of some stuff to chew. Some awe to archive. Here’s one way to get it on your worst days.

For starters, we all know the difficulty of walking to the window, but the sunshine is always warmer than your comforter. We need complex heat. When you’re feeling alone, slicing away at your boredom with the cold straight razor of algorithms, consider warming things up. Think of short-form content (Reels, TikTok, etc.) as ice cubes. They’re fun to munch on for a bit, but munch too long and you’re begging for a brain freeze. Try something longer. Whatever you’re interested in. An in-depth video about gaming, an opinion piece on that one political topic you know nothing about, anything longer than 10 minutes will do. Play it as you wander to a place where the sun touches your skin. This could simply be a waddle to fully open the blinds in your bedroom. Just let the light touch you and listen. Be sure to rewind when you inevitably check out. Pause to think often. Pay attention to your attention. Lock in and finish it. When you do, the time comes to start your Archive of Awe (spoiler: it is not as “mind palace” as you think).

Now that your body has warmed up to paying true attention, sit with a creative or scientific work that is A) long-form and B) challenging to understand/imagine. I like books and podcasts about philosophy, astronomy, physics, or social discourse, but pick something that truly interests you. Could be a documentary about a murderer for all I care. I just ask that you pay critical attention. Consider every word. Every argument. Again, pause often to think. Think/talk/write out your thoughts about it. What solutions you agree with, what questions you may have, etc. can all be yours before collecting outside opinions. It’s not homework. It’s a practice to stay human. To stay thinking. To bring yourself into quiet reflection about anything but yourself. I promise, if you look closely at humanity in this way, you will find something that sticks. At least one revelation will stupefy your whirling mind. Something about humans and the sameness of strangers can and should cause you an overwhelming sense of reverential fear and wonder for humanity. There’s your hard-earned awe for the day. 

Record those. Keep them. The Archive of Awe is your personal history of all these moments. I toss my ramblings about space rocks into an archive called my Notes app like the rest of mankind. Sometimes they become more. One little morsel matured into a 60-page sci-fi pilot. Others make for annoying dinner conversation. You do not need to be a writer to record the best parts of your life. That’s the best part of building your Archive of Awe.

The simplicity of life is stored in our complex ramblings about it. The more we ponder and discuss life’s complexities, the more its simplicity shines. This is, for lack of a better yuppie word, very centering. After I’ve completed the fulfilling task of reading and taking notes on something that makes my brain fly, it’s easier to tackle the parts of life I’d previously rather not lived, like doing the dishes or forcing my tired body to a friend’s house to watch their favorite movie. 

It’s hard to distract yourself from the things you like, and we all like awe. We just have to train ourselves to find it often and everywhere, even if that training begins online. Soon you will find The Moments in daily life. In places you’d never looked before. In movies you’ve seen a hundred times and the faces of your friends during their favorite scenes. Only then can your Archive of Awe be rendered useless, as it will consist of every second you breathe. 

Written by Patty Castellanos