Never discount the power of awe
I now realize why coloring books and sidewalk chalk were so appealing when I was a child, why watching snow fall out the window and staring at the flame of a candle calmed my racing thoughts, why exploring our wooded backyard, collecting leaves and rocks, felt like a grand adventure.
Before the modern age of technology, “slow dopamine release” wasn’t a catch phrase or something to be studied, it was simply the way life was. If you’re reading this column, you likely have similar memories, although yours may involve fishing or sewing or brushing a horse’s mane. Maybe you remember a long walk to school with neighborhood kids, making homemade cookies with your grandmother or sorting baseball cards on the floor of your living room.
Perhaps it’s a memory of listening to an album from beginning to end, never tiring of the same voice crooning through the speakers, or maybe a memory of making a mix tape, cutting magazine pictures for a collage or spending hours arranging photographs in a scrapbook.
When I think back on my childhood and even the early years of my boys’ lives, the movie reel of my mind moves in slow motion, and I think it’s because the days unfolded at a more relaxed pace. We weren’t bombarded with cell phone notifications, 24-hour news cycles and a constant social media stream of everyone’s highs and lows.
Not to mention the surge of AI to where now it’s hard to believe anything one sees online. I remember when Facebook launched, then Twitter then Pinterest. With each new platform, I resisted, not wanting to jump on a bandwagon, until eventually, I felt like I was living in the past while everyone else propelled into the future. I succumbed and joined the platforms myself.
Now, I feel like the same is happening with AI. Believe me or not, but I’ve yet to get on ChatGPT. I know plenty of people who use it to plan trips, find workouts, help write emails or create lesson plans, and obviously there are time-saving benefits to having a bot help create things, but to what end? With each task we automate, we use critical thinking, problem solving and creative skill sets less and less, and that bothers me deeply.
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Indigenous wisdom through the ages
As part of my spiritual practice, I read a verse of the Tao Te Ching each morning. This is the set of principles written 2,500 years ago by Lao-tzu that guide Taoism (also known as Daoism).
One of the verses I read this week was Verse 72, which says:
When people lack a sense of awe,
there will be disaster.
When people do not fear worldly power,
a greater power will arrive.
Do not limit the view of yourself.
Do not despise the conditions of your birth.
Do not resist the natural course of your life.
In this way, you will never tire of this world.
Therefore, the sage knows himself
but makes no show of himself;
loves himself
but does not exalt himself.
He prefers what is within to what is without.
The sentiment of this verse centers on awe and total acceptance. When we live in a state of awe of the miraculous nature of our earth and the humans who walk among us, we can’t help but feel fully alive. Similarly, when we allow total acceptance of our circumstances and the world in which we live, each experience feels lighter, easier, more exciting.
One of my favorite Christmas memories is of lighting all the candles we owned and staring at the many flickering flames, no two of them alike. Despite all the gifts and hoopla surrounding my girlhood Christmases, this memory of watching the candles always comes to the forefront of my mind, and that says a lot to me. It’s the moments of awe — the flicker of a candle, the appearance of the first spring flower, the giggle of a baby, a sunrise over the sea — that stirs the soul.
As with social media, I’m sure I’ll ultimately embrace this new digital age and maybe even utilize ChatGPT, but I also know that it’s organic wanderlust and surrendering to the unknown that truly make life magical.
(Susanna Shetley is a writer and editor who lives in Haywood County. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..)
