2 Awe and Gratitude

No matter how well science understands everything, and no matter how much technology and the culture depending on it change everything — awe remains the appropriate response to human existence. To living a life, after birth, here on planet Earth.

And gratitude is its natural companion. I didn’t choose to be born. (I would have if I had the choice!!! I think?) My upbringing as a baby, a kid, a young adult, was thanks to my mom, my family, my friends, my community, to society at large. The unlikelihood of our existences makes gratitude look almost automatic — even without a God obvious to owe the gratitude to.

Awe and gratitude are, to me, the most beautiful and necessary precepts to a life. To this life. At this time in history.

On awe. For the record: even with all our understanding of the mechanics of biological life, we have yet to replicate or invent a single living creature — Okay, there has been some cloning — and genetic modification… so, well — we do (as a whole species) “play God” in so many ways. But hey: humans and their technologies are still technically a natural extension of life on Earth, and similarly require a constant state of awe. Personally, going to the art museum, or listening to my latest indie dream-pop art-rock playlist — things like this are enough to envelop me in a delightful condition of awe and wonder. But that’s still the quickening culture of the human species. The human race. What of nature?

Earth’s biosphere connects 2.3 million identified species of plants, animals, and microbes back to a common evolutionary origin. Animal biodiversity includes astonishing traits, like regeneration in axolotls or echolocation in bats and dolphins (just to name-drop a few of those magical creatures). On the other hand, plants dominate over 82% of the global biomass, and subterranean fungal networks silently govern our ecosystems.[onetreeplanted-1] One function — perhaps the primary function — of all of that plant matter is that it creates our oxygen-rich environment. The one we all need to breathe and survive. So that’s pretty… awe-some.

Of course, we only have so much dopamine and serotonin — only so much capacity to actually feel the full response. So it is sufficient to be cognizant of the need for awe in every living moment, and to let that cognizance be a factor in decision-making and generally in our way about things — as having a human lifespan, being members of the human family, of the animal family, and to some degree of the plant family. And perhaps even the rock/crystal family. Broadly spoken: as a part of every living thing on this planet, extensions of the unity of atavistic life that becomes apparent when we take evolution to its logical conclusion — or, more accurately, its logical beginnings.

On gratitude. It is just so good to be out of the woods. To be grown and capable of decision-making. To have the capacity for simple joys and more complex feelings. To have the wherewithal and the privilege to take care of yourself.

You and I are a blip on the grand radar screen, the blink of an eye in the history of life on Earth. And yet here we are — a tiny window of existence in which, as Carl Sagan put it, we are the opportunity for the universe to know itself. Consciousness — one of the greatest gifts of this phenomenally unlikely existence.

On technology, as part of the gratitude. Running water, electric lights, sanitation, medicine, food preservation, heating/cooling and ventilation, public and private transportation, infrastructure— every day is a miracle, and the continued cooperation and trade of societies make these things possible. It is a blessing. These things deserve a hallowed space within the New Religion — within the Humanitarian/Naturalist belief and incentive system. (these advancements remain true independent of what kind of government one lives with. At least I hope so.)

Awe at the fact of existing. Gratitude for the conditions — biological, social, technological — that let us exist well. These are the affective foundations of HNR. Not a doctrine to subscribe to, but a daily orientation: to remain cognizant of the wonder, and to let that awareness shape how we each move through a human lifespan here in spinning rock no3 (earth.)