We have eyes yet see not. Ears that hear not. And hearts that neither feel nor understand.

~ Live & Learn

I think a lot about the contrast between banality and wonder.  Between disengagement and radiant ecstacy.  Between being unaffected by the hear and now and being absolutely ravished emotionally by it. And I think one of the problems for human beings is mental habits. One we create a comfort zone, we rarely step outside of that comfort zone.  But the consequence of that is a phenomenon known as hedonic adaptation. Overstimulation to the same kind of thing, the same stimuli, again and again and again, renders said stimuli invisible.  Your brain has already mapped it in its own head and you know longer literarily have to be engaged in it.  We have eyes yet see not. Ears that hear not. And hearts that neither feel nor understand.  There is a great book called “The Wondering Brain” that says that one of ways that we elicit wonder is by scrambling the self temporarily so that the world can seep in. Henry Miller says that even grass when given proper attention becomes an infinitely magnificent world in itself.  Darwin said attention if sudden and close graduates into surprise, and this into astonishment, and this into stupefied amazement. That’s what rapture is. That’s what illumination is. That’s what infinite comprehending awe that human beings love so much. And so how do we do that?  How do we mess with our perceptual apparatus in order to have the kind of emotional and aesthetic experience from life that we render most meaningful.  Because we all know that those moments are there. Those are those moments that would make the final cut. Only in these moments we experience a fresh, the hardly bearable, ecstasy of direct energy exploding on our nerve endings. This is the rhapsodic, ecstatic, bursting forth of awe that expands our perceptual parameters beyond our previous limits. And we literally have to reconfigure our mental models of the world in order to assimilate the beauty of that download. That is what it means to be inspired. The Greek root of the term means to breathe in. To take it in. We fit the Universe through our brains and it comes out in the form of nothing less than poetry. We have a responsibilities to awe.

~ Jason Silva

Source: SwissMiss

17 thoughts on “We have eyes yet see not. Ears that hear not. And hearts that neither feel nor understand.”

  3. There are millions of these moments throughout the day. I hope that I recognize at least a handful of them. Some days it’s easier than others.

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  4. So many terrific thoughts, so many ‘quoteworthy’ lines. But yes, the ‘bursting forth of awe’, the rush of being astonished. Those are the keeper moments.

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  6. A great reminder that we can be Blissed out of our minds when we attend to the beauty, wonder and mystery we’re surrounded by. I love Jason’s enthusiasm!
    Thanks for sharing David 🙂

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  7. Such enthusiasm from such a young person…so great! I believe that it is too the habits which people acquire and their everyday routine which can make them numb to the “awe” that is all around them. If we could all just take a minute, open our eyes, let our hearts become soaked with the beauty and love in this world…we would truly be filled with awe, with radiant ecstasy, yes.

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