Awe Is Not a Luxury. It Is a Way to Survive

The anatomy of awe: admiration as a foundation of everyday life

Awe is nothing other than admiration or recognition in the face of something that stuns us, lifts us, and engages almost all the senses. We can be awed by something — a work of art, a new car — or by someone. For example, we can be awed by an attitude, beauty, taste, intelligence, wisdom, or an excellent solution to a problem. Yet if awe is to work effectively on the brain, bringing it relief, strength, and better functioning, it cannot be fake.

A masked ball at Beelzebub’s

In short, one cannot manufacture awe artificially while keeping, at the back of one’s mind, the conviction that this is simply what one ought to feel. At Beelzebub’s ball in Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, Margarita greeted the guests with a formula of delight — a quotation that should be verified against the chosen English translation before publication. However, the devil himself had commanded her to do so, so that historical justice could be served. Those who had been humiliated, degraded, and painfully wronged now, resurrected from their graves, were given their five minutes to feel happy. And they were.

They were happy in the dance, in an exceptional moment that exceeded time and place. And although a lie repeated a thousand times becomes truth, the state of awe should remain natural. After all, there will always be something that moves us so strongly that we feel a fresh breeze of elevation.

What the evolutionary game of survival teaches us

But how are we supposed to do this when wars are breaking out around us, people are destroying the planet, children are bullying other children, and food no longer tastes the way we remember from childhood? What is there to admire, apart from the impressions we gather on trips to wild natural places?

The instinct to praise others

Jonathan Haidt of the University of Virginia, together with a group of researchers, described the complexity of connections among universal emotions closely linked to innate reactions. These are adaptive responses that influence human social activity. He emphasized, however, that they are not as primitive as fear or anger. He called them “other-praising emotions.” They are not merely specific forms of affects such as joy, curiosity, or the pleasure of entertainment. Rather, they form a distinct and indispensable family of human emotions.

As Denis Dutton writes in The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution, this set of emotions includes gratitude for the actions of others, admiration for another person’s excellence, especially in the display of skill. Also, it includes admiration for great sensitivity, which we may call “elevation.”

The perverse nature of human judgment

Imagine, then, that instead of envying a neighbor who has bought a new Porsche, we begin to admire his car. And also the ability of the man next door to earn a great deal of money.

Instead of complaining about a country in which two hostile camps continue to fight each other, we might try to admire those thanks to whom our country functions, surprisingly, better and better. This is an entire army of competent, responsible officials. No one replaces them, even after lost elections.

Instead of lamenting that our adult child does not call us very often, we might admire them for being resourceful in life. And for not living out of our wallet.

It is interesting that we can admire female tennis champions or ski jumpers when they succeed. Yet when, after some time, they stumble, we begin to complain about their affectations, about success going to their heads, and about the millions they have earned.

What if, at the moment when a sports champion falters, we began to admire that person twice as much? Because they endured so much while living for years under pressure, and they are still enduring it — especially the public stigmatizing that follows when, from time to time, they crack and show a human face.

Psychologists have studied emotions related to criticizing others, such as contempt and disgust, as well as emotions connected with self-admiration, such as pride and self-satisfaction, or with self-criticism, such as embarrassment and shame. Only recently, however, have researchers begun to speak more fully about emotions connected with praising others.

Darwin defined awe as a feeling of surprise linked to a certain kind of pleasure and a sense of approval. Haidt, mentioned above, calls it a pleasurable response to non-moral excellence.

The scientific perspective, or how to be happy

Feelings of admiration motivate people toward improvement or awe. Awe is also a distinct feeling of pleasure, rooted in us as an adaptive function on the path of socialization. In this way, we function better in a society with which we can communicate. And society, in turn, gives something back: we have something to live on, something to do, and people to meet. Most importantly, we become more creative.

When life turns out to be beautiful

I am convinced that without admiration for the human individual’s capacity to survive, Roberto Benigni’s 1997 film Life Is Beautiful would never have been made. It is the story of a young Jewish father who is sent to a concentration camp with his little son. There, he tries to convince the boy that they are taking part in a game for adults. It is, in truth, a cruel reality, but the father’s attitude saves the child’s life. Whatever you think, reverse it — this becomes the maxim of people who win and preserve their dignity to the end.

Everyday life, relationships, and how to find awe nearby

Admiration, like awe, is therefore a method that gives lightness to life — the kind of lightness we lack so much in everyday living if we are to live more boldly, more fully, and forgive ourselves the mistakes that follow from the human condition. After all, there is in human beings a certain compulsion to err. To do the same thing again. Even though it becomes more tragic and more ridiculous at the same time, as Professor Zbigniew Mikołejko observed.

Instead of complaining about a husband who has been unable to move from the couch for three hours because he is glued to the television and a fascinating England-Croatia match, we can loudly admire his spine for holding out so long in a sitting position.

We do not have to criticize a child for the mess in their room. We can express admiration for their ability to accept dirt, dust, and chaos — conditions that would prevent us from focusing and achieving anything at all. Our child, meanwhile, is doing just fine.

By reversing the situation, we remove some of the weight from the matter that overwhelms us. We lower its significance. From there, it is only a step toward changing what we could not change through nagging, envy, and diminishing the people we care about. They are intelligent enough to notice their own mistakes. And to pull themselves together — not only into shape, but also into their own arms.

Perhaps this is how to find awe without lying to ourselves: not by pretending that the world is beautiful everywhere, but by noticing the stubborn, comic, moving forms of life that still deserve admiration.

Read this article in Polish: Zachwyt to nie luksus dla naiwnych. To instynkt przetrwania