Awe Isn't A Miracle. What It Does For Your Creativity Might Be.

I have to admit.

I had never thought about awe much, if at all. I’ve experienced it. The birth of my daughter. The aurora borealis. Rocketing over the sand dunes in Nantucket in a Jeep Wrangler. The entirety of Iceland comes to mind.

But as a concept, as a facet of human emotion, no. I had never really paid much attention to it. Until I heard an interview on NPR with psychology professor, Dacher Keltner.

His book “Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life” posits that there’s a direct connection between awe and creativity.

Interesting.

So what is awe exactly? “Awe is the feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends your understanding of the world”. That’s how Keltner puts it and he ought to know.

But what does seeing a comet streak across a night sky or experiencing the sheer vastness of a whale for the first time or the otherworldliness of Antarctica have to do with creativity?