The view from above
Have you ever felt awe and exhilaration while contemplating a vista of jagged, snow-capped mountains? Or been fascinated but also a bit unsettled while beholding a thunderous waterfall such as Niagara? Or felt existentially insignificant but strangely exalted while gazing up at the clear, starry night sky? If so, then you’ve had an experience of wh
... See moreSandra Shapshay • At once tiny and huge: what is this feeling we call ‘sublime’? | Aeon Ideas
Facing you, soaring up from the depths of the valley, is the mighty, glacier-tipped peak, its smooth snowfields and hard-edged rock-faces touched at this moment with soft rose-colour by the last rays of the departing sun, all marvellously sharp against the clear, pale, transparent blue of the sky.According to our usual way of looking at it, everyth... See more
Maria Popova • What Makes You You Makes the Universe: Nobel Laureate Erwin Schrödinger on Quantum Physics, Vedanta, and the Ongoing Mystery of Consciousness
Here we have an account of sublime experience that oscillates between feeling reduced to nothing in comparison with the great spatial and temporal expanse of nature, and then feeling elevated by two thoughts ‘that only philosophy makes clear’. First is the thought that as cognising, thinking subjects we in a sense create (support, construct) our ow
... See moreSandra Shapshay • At once tiny and huge: what is this feeling we call ‘sublime’? | Aeon Ideas
Cet effort pour regarder d'en haut permet donc de contempler le panorama total de la réalité humaine sous tous ses aspects sociaux, géographiques, sentimentaux, et de les replacer dans l'immensité cosmique et dans le fourmillement anonyme de l'espèce humaine sur la terre.