Wonder and Beauty
I was reading the Discovery of India by Jawaharlal Nehru yesterday evening. JN surprises me every time I read him. He is an astonishingly good writer; his erudition is vast and brilliant. He has had amazing experiences in his life, and possesses an intellect that is great in itself.
JN wrote about ancient India. His analysis of the facts of the day seem more like the psychoanalysis of a people. His description evokes wonder and awe, an ability which is extremely rare in this malleable field of history. Writing and teaching are truly art forms. As a famous professor of physics remarked, “Any physics teacher who makes it boring is a criminal”. Same holds for every other subject as well.
What caught my particular attention was the potential to cause a sense of wonder in some person who merely reads it. The human mind, as it so often does, led this sliver of thought to the vast expanse of imagination — How do we experience wonder and amazement at anything at all? What for that matter is beauty?
Emotional experience of ‘Awe’
Awe is an emotional experience through which happiness is elicited. It seems to be connected strongly to a sense of humility. Humility arises (probably) when there is a sense of overwhelming. One may be overwhelmed and surprised by the abilities of another person. He may be overwhelmed by the beauty of nature, or the complexity unravelled in the quest for knowledge. One may be overwhelmed by emotions when he discovers something profoundly true in the universe.
Beauty, gracefulness, admiration, humility and overwhelming seem to be closely related features of the emotional experience of awe.
Indeed, it makes little sense to isolate an emotional experience with just one emotion. It is a complex mixture of a range of emotions.
What causes awe and what constitutes beauty?
Awe is probably experienced when we are introduced to entirely new experiences and thoughts. It is difficult to distinguish between external and internal experiences in these matters since both have the same effect on the mind and its makeup. A beautiful thought, generated in our mind or introduced by a teacher, is as likely to make us feel amazed as the sheer beauty of a scenery.
Of-course not all thoughts and external experiences cause this feeling. We are pre-disposed to this feeling only with certain mental and physiological conditions.
a) External physical inducement —
What do we perceive as beautiful? We think of something as physically beautiful based on how well it is compatible with the genetic and physiological construction of our body, particularly the senses.
We are attracted to ‘beauty’ of that sort. A natural scenery that soothes our touch, smell, taste, vision and sound senses is automatically perceived as most beautiful. A human of the opposite sex with particular arrangement of bones, flesh, muscles, organs and skin is automatically perceived as beautiful based on the genetic memory of ‘beauty’ that we have encoded. Many of us think of insects as ugly, perhaps because they were a menace for our ancestors.
b) Intellectual experience — Even at a time when the rich reserves of scientific education eluded most human beings, intellectual experiences were valued. There are legendary stories of deep intellectual pursuits. In Hindu Mythology, it is said that Adiyogi (the first Yogi) and his disciples were sitting once to discuss life and the universe. The overzealous disciples bombarded the master with millions of questions. What is this universe? When did it start? Who made me? Why is there something and not nothing? With an unending flood of questions, the Adiyogi grew uncomfortable, but determined to teach them an important lesson. He asked them to focus on just one part of the universe — the seed of a plant that he had near him. He said that the disciples would know the universe if they get to know the seed. Modern day science too affirms the same point. If we go deep enough into anything, it becomes abundantly interesting, and therefore satisfying.
It is truly curious that we should be experiencing a sense of beauty even without the evocation of a physically existing entity. Mathematics is an instant example here. Mathematicians are often known to turn into passionate poets and prose writers, having lived a life of a social recluse. It is so with most modern-day intellectuals no matter which field they are in. Beauty is said to be limitless in the intellectual realm. Often shrouded in intimate mysteries and immense complexities, the subjects of intellectuals are constantly finding their way into the public life — in arts and in entertainment.
c) Scales and perspectives — Can you imagine a universe that is just 5000 years old and is just a few thousand kms large in every dimension? What would be the effect on our psychology if we were to move along freely to any part of the universe and know how it was at every instant? What if every thing about the universe was absurdly simple and predictable? What if we even knew what our thoughts and actions will be half a century into the future? What if there was only one interpretation to any observation made? A perfectly simple, predictable and supremely navigable universe seems to be a psychological dystopia.
Does this mean that we fundamentally need mysteries and diversity for our psychological survival? It seems to be so. We are discontent with sameness. Indeed, we make every effort to look and feel unique from the vast crowd of beings around us! Diversity is the juice of life. Mystery is the food of our minds. We definitely feel awed at the scale of our existence relative to the scale of ‘whole’ existence. We definitely feel awed at the variety and diversity of life forms, of opinions and thoughts. We need diversity and a sense of scale not because of some misguided political narrative, but because it is essential for our psychological well-being.
d) Abilities and potentials —
A beautiful piece of music, a delightful painting, a delicious lunch, a dreamy dance — what is common? They all involve skill, dedication, energy and gracefulness. There are very few differences between you and AR Rahman, Leonardo Da Vinci, your mother or a professional dancer. You all look surprisingly same, have the same physical makeup, have similarly nourishing food and enjoy good health. Yet those individuals are revered by all. Why? Fundamentally, because they showed us all what could be done with two pairs of limbs, a healthy body and a normal mind. We humans have been given certain physical and mental abilities that are ought to be tapped into — ideally. Pushing our bodies and minds to the extremes or simply engaging all the tools we have at our disposition in a graceful and effortless manner creates an immense wealth of happiness that bursts into the social life and infects others too. Such abilities are rare not because they are reserved for talent, but because too many people have been fooled into wasting their potentials.
e) A rich social life — There is, to my mind, one other subtle path to awe. It is commonly known that man is a social animal. As I mentioned in a point before, any ability or behavior that is encoded in our body and mind, is to be optimized so as to get a sense of gracefulness, which evokes awe. We perceive certain social actions as good and certain other actions as bad. We all have elaborate codes of ethics and good conduct, ultimately based on an optimal social life for the species. Our transactions with the society, physical and otherwise, are of incalculable psychological value. We are often awed by beautiful stories about people and we actively seek stories from around the world. To deny our social existence or to contribute to its degradation is universally perceived as bad. Stories and relationships enrich us in subtle ways. They are the foundations of perhaps a ‘base level’ awe and beauty.
A note on some perils today
Of course my description of awe and beauty is at best inadequate and at worst wrong. But it makes sense to analyze the applicability of these points to the present world anyway.
Physical beauty is known to be relative — it is after all in the eyes of the beholder. Yet many impatient and arrogant people have made it an industry. We now have a wide social and psychological perception of beauty in human beings and in nature. We find companies that manufacture social perceptions and gain from it by targeted marketing. If there is anything that should be de-industrialized, it is the individual perception of beauty. Our vigilant efforts are needed to dissuade such socially destructive efforts.
Intellectual quests are being attacked too. There lies a fundamental difference between informed criticism and uninformed bigotry. Too many people in possession of diverse ‘facts’ that they scarcely understand are going all out on ‘intellectual’ wars with the opposite faction. We must remember to take advice from a community of intellectuals who do not indulge in arbitrary and mindless violence — scientists. They hold rational debates, not propaganda wars.
I have made a case here for diversity in all its forms. This comes at a time when groups are threatening each other in the local and global scale. Intolerance is said to be on a high everywhere around the world. A world that is not hostile to its fellows would be immensely desirable for all.
We all do one thing well — we appreciate talents and abilities. But is our appreciation creative? Are we stale in our tastes and variety? Do we remain fixated on our preferences? If yes, we need to expand. Not just to give space to new budding arts and talents, but also to fine tune our sense of appreciation, and therefore the probability of us being awed.
Man is a social animal. Our duties to the society are sometimes viewed myopically as self-sacrifices. But interaction with the society is the very nature of our psychological existence, and nothing gives us more meaning and satisfaction than the singular attitude of service.
There seem to emerge two points in the context of present day stories: lets not hurt others as we ourselves would not like to be hurt; let us pursue beauty and wonder courageously and incessantly.
