Learning and awe: the power of embracing your inner child to make a social impact
Author: Ben Griffiths | Vice President of Operations
“Why?”
This is the question we all used to ask the adults in our lives, with the unrelenting persistence characteristic of our childhood selves.
There was so much that we didn’t know, so much to discover and uncover, and we (wrongfully) assumed adults had all the answers to our ever-present “why?”. This unbridled curiosity was pursued with profound tenacity which led to many moments of sheer awe whenever a new discovery was made.
What happened?
Somewhere in the development of our lives that childlike wonder and curiosity seems to have died and made way for a more jaded and indifferent version of ourselves.
There’s a lot to be gained from tapping back into your inner child and embracing the power of awe, learning, and discovery in making life more affirming and fulfilling, while increasing your ability to make a meaningful social impact with your limited time on this plane of existence.
There’s an endless universe of stuff out there to discover in a world of unknowns (to you and me). The prospect of this opportunity to learn as a lifelong process should fill you all with excitement and curiosity as you get to see your understanding and perspective grow and evolve in fascinating ways, empowering you to discover new connections which were unbeknownst to you the day before. The joy of uncovering something new about the world is my favourite way of maintaining my childlike curiosity through continual wonderment.
My favourite thing about learning though is that it allows me to have fulfilling conversations with people that compound each person's insights as we explore, critique, and synthesise multiple perspectives into something new. Having these kinds of conversations is a fantastic way to build lasting connections and a richer understanding that can be applied to our lives and to the kind of impact we’d like to make on the world.
Another central component to our childhood wonderment is the feeling of awe that arrived wherever our curiosity led us. It’s profoundly difficult to encapsulate exactly what awe is but recalling childhood wonderment comes close. This isn’t just a conceptual abstraction though; awe is an observable phenomenon where it has been found that people "who felt awe, relative to other emotions, felt they had more time available, were less impatient, were more willing to volunteer their time to help others, and more strongly preferred experiences over material goods."
I hope these substantial benefits underscores the value of pursuing awe, both for us and the world beyond us, as we become more generous and willing to make a social impact. However, simply laying out its observed benefits doesn’t quite capture the qualities of awe that make it truly worthwhile to experience.
Awe can be expressed or experienced in multitudinal contexts that aren’t easily articulable. It is a part of a life of continual journeying and learning, whereby each new discovery allows a person to revel in the ecstacy of having their mind blown. It can also represent personal and intellectual development, through the experience of perceptual expansion and vastness. Awe gives us a feeling of connectedness as we appreciate both our place in a vast universe and the people around us that fill us with inspiration. It is this very inspiration that can be a source of life affirmation, as one pursues the sublime with manic necessity and appreciates the moments of awe that have been experienced so far.
These all describe transcendent feelings that are beyond what we normally experience in everyday consciousness and should therefore be cherished whenever they occur in our lives. It’s a great source of fulfillment to actively cultivate awe and to do this through learning, all while empowering us with the knowledge and disposition to make an impact. It is with this in mind that I outline my approach to awe and learning beyond simply accumulating facts. I sincerely hope you will find this just as satisfying and worthwhile as it has been for me.
Here’s a small list of different ways I personally find awe and build
perspective in my life:
Learning new things about the world and the people who are a part of it
Actively and routinely challenging my worldview and any assumptions I’m making
Experiencing art, music, literature, and films
Meditation
Thinking about and meditating on the vastness of the universe
Existential thoughts and exploring philosophy
Reading conceptual and challenging sci-fi novels
Experiencing and reflecting on nature
Long and great conversations with people about all sorts of topics
In my view, I see three categories of information that are prerequisites to having a rich understanding of any given topic or problem: facts, experiences, and perspectives.
Facts are important as they are external observations or evidence about a given phenomenon and serve as the basis through which experiences and perspectives are mediated and explored.
It’s also incredibly valuable to take in first-person lived experiences with a particular phenomenon or idea. It is not only possible but critical that these aren’t just your own experiences. Understanding and empathising with how different people and stakeholders both interact with and are differentially affected by something is essential. It allows us to develop a meaningful understanding of a topic that a simple assembly of facts would not provide.
Perspective refers to the frame of reference, ontology, theory, or mode of being that you have generally or are applying to a particular concept. Perspectives are informed by experiences and facts, but they exist in a broader context that can be applied in a general way, whereas experiences and facts are usually only relevant to a particular context. Taking in a wide range of perspectives is critical as no amount of facts or experience will compensate for a narrow perspective that doesn’t actively integrate several points of view in attempting to understand something.
I bring all of this up because there’s a reductive tendency to view learning as a simple accumulation of facts when that is not the case. It is equally important to accumulate experiences and perspectives as part of an ongoing and lifelong journey to developing a richer world view.
It is incredibly important to recognise that our own experiences and socialisation render all of us with an extremely limited perspective that couldn’t possibly capture the complexity, nuance, and diversity of sentient experience and perspectives alone. This also renders us prone to making judgements without fully understanding issues or the people involved with them. This can lead to an unconscious universalisation of our own experience and perspective while treating others with that narrow lens. Likewise, it can lead to considering oneself as a unique individual while essentialising other people or practices.
This makes it crucial that we all make a sustained effort to cultivate empathy through actively and intentionally taking in the experiences and perspectives of a diverse array of people. It’s not always possible to fully comprehend what someone has been through, but it’s incredibly important to make an effort, be empathetic, and be inclusive.
It’s also worth recognising that nobody owes you an explanation of their experiences or perspectives, nor are they obligated to be a vehicle for your own personal growth.
This highlights the importance of taking an intersectional, interdisciplinary, and cosmopolitan approach to problem solving and creating a social impact. By this I mean a worldview that recognises and appreciates different perspectives, academic disciplines, and lived experiences while seeing all of us as part of a global community.
I personally love this quote from the famous polymath Leonardo da Vinci about interdisciplinarity and interconnectedness:
“To develop a complete mind: Study the science of art; Study the art of science. Learn how to see. Realise that everything connects to everything else.”
The consequences of not taking this approach to learning becomes readily apparent when trying to make a positive social impact. Looking in particular at public policy (although this is applicable to numerous contexts), there are countless examples of nonsensical or inappropriate solutions being implemented because there was minimal engagement with the lived experiences and perspectives within a community, which are integral to designing sustainable and tangible solutions.
As previously mentioned, I included a list of things I do to build awe and perspective. I see the cultivation of these as fundamentally interrelated because captivating and sublime experiences tend to have a lasting impact on my perspective, and the act of uncovering new ways of seeing the world is a source of continual awe and inspiration. Finding and tapping into the intersection of awe and perspective building through lifelong learning is critical to growing personally and for making a meaningful and informed impact.
This can seem daunting, but it’s really important to view this as part of an ongoing journey that we’re all on. There’s also no end point where you’re officially “enlightened” or an objective way of determining who has a “richer” worldview so don’t get stuck in that meaningless race. The universe doesn’t owe us a succinct explanation of itself and there’s more information out there than you could conceivably learn in a thousand lifetimes. This is a journey with no finish line, it’s all about embracing continual self-improvement and working each day on being a more knowledgeable, empathetic, and wise person than you were yesterday.
Developing an insatiable appetite for learning and rediscovering that state of awe will make this journey easier, more exhilarating, profoundly fulfilling, and ultimately impactful.