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SuperSirVexSmasher t1_isxb9xf wrote

The Sublime

I once heard (or maybe read) that daily exposure to the sublime is important. I think the point of it is to anchor your experiences and perspective of reality in the transcendent, awe inspiring, and divine. I often forget to engage in this kind of exposure. I do amateur astronomy and astrophotography but I usually get this sense of grandness and awe while engaged in thought about the nature of reality. When I happen to achieve this emotion - it's difficult to explain apart from "awe" or maybe it's kind of what religious ecstacy is like - I'm incredibly captivated by the idea of my existence in this world.

I often feel incredibly curious about what this is all about. I also often ponder human culture and how radically it changes from one Millenia to another, though the human animal is basically the same. This high variability in human culture makes the culture I know seem a bit arbitrary and absurd. It's like humans are so distracted by engaging in culture that those initial ideas, like asking why you're even alive, seems to regularly escape our attention. The nature of death, for example, remains uninspected until it finally surprises us all later in life as if we didn't really believe we were mortal all along. Our engagement in our culture - i.e., chasing money, a career, cars, houses, lovers, food, media, etc.. - distracts us from wondering about the nature of the reality in which we're engaging in that culture. This is true, at least for me, until I touch the sublime (usually in idea) and get sucked into the more fundamental, I think, experience of reality. However, I notice this occurs at night and I've also noticed that no matter how deep my thought had been through the night the next morning I wake up "locked in" to human culture once again. Each morning I wake up distracted and ignorant and some days I'm lucky enough to remember I'm part of something grand and wonderful.

I wonder now, how many of you experience this? Does it happen to you regularly? How do you achieve this? Feel free to comment how you'd like (obviously), I'm very curious.

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philosopal t1_isxo89w wrote

Thank you for sharing this. I’m so glad to hear that others care about these ideas too.

I think meditating every night for the last 3 months has allowed me to get to what you might term a secular form of “The Sublime”. What I have observed is a gradual development of the ability to detach from human culture as you call it, in short bursts, throughout the day. The more I meditate, the more aware I am of the space between my environment and my reactions. In short, I can just exist. I believe this is one way to experience “reality” without all the cultural influences clouding it. Not sure if I’d call it an objective reality, but at least it’s one different from the usual culturally motivated one. Maybe it’s a different facet of reality.

Anyway, I’m happy to report that while in this state during the day, I often experience profound gratitude for being able to breathe, eat, sleep and experience the world. Gratitude is definitely heightened during and after my daily meditation practices, as well as feelings of forgiveness, benevolence and wishing other living beings well. There are also feelings that are quote unquote “unpleasant”, like despair, rage, terror and the like. I see all of these as part of the experience of being alive, something that non-living things cannot sense, so I count them as blessings and am interested in immersing in them fully. Overall, seems like the trend is towards being calmer, more deliberate with my choices, more comfortable with myself and accepting situations and others as they are.

Hopefully, the more I meditate, the more space I have to discern “reality” from cultural pressures. Well, at least insofar my senses and cultural background allows me to. What about you? Anything you do to trigger this state?

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SuperSirVexSmasher t1_isxr1ml wrote

Hello,

Thanks for your reply. I don't know if it's a bit strange but I can enter this extremely wonderous and profound appreciation of life when considering what I think may be some really unexpected things. For example, I remember sitting around during lunchtime at work. I obviously wasn't particularly occupied at that moment so i could think about random ideas. I had my neck turned, I touched my neck and thought about how those muscles are all laid out so perfectly for my neck to work, then I considered my body and how amazing it is we are such complicated and, in my opinion, exceptionally impressive and precise machines, then I considered how the entire universe is organized in such a way that this is all happening for us/with us. It's so strange how you get there sometimes. There is considering the consequences of the idea of being the universe itself rather than separating yourself from the universe. There is considering the story of cosmogony so far.

You know, I find it interesting that you state you accept the pain of life and consider it a blessing - I agree. I once asked my father about what he would do if an asteroid was going to annihilate life on earth, would he go to a bar and drink or would he stand and watch it hit. He told me that he would choose getting drunk, he wouldn't want to see it coming. I found it pretty interesting to consider because death is a part of the experience of life as a mortal. Your death will only happen one time, would you want to fully experience the event? (I've read some pretty cool things about what happens when you die). It seems like most people would choose to look away. I think it's all a part of the story. I wonder, would you look at your death?

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philosopal t1_it1ifo9 wrote

I think what you experienced is a sense of awe and I don’t think it’s strange at all. I think it’s wonderful and restorative. For example, authors like Brooke McAlary talk about how it can rejuvenate us and help ease climate anxiety.

When it comes to death, let’s just say circumstances made me aware of my impending non-existence since I was a kid. It’s shocking at first, the idea that someday you would stop existing. Over time I came to see death as part of life. Living beings make up less than 0.1^1000% of matter in the universe (stat is just to make a point), and of that small percent, we somehow have the chance to be self-aware and sentient. Maybe this can’t last forever, but I’m just grateful to be on the ride.

Because of my love of life, I think I wouldn’t look at my death. I know it’s coming, but I’d rather spend my time living life with my loved ones and favourite passions. My life philosophy is to savour my time, and the good and bad experiences that come with it, so I’d do the same if I knew my death was coming soon. I probably would think about my death only to enhance my gratitude for the experiences I’ve had.

What about you?

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Gentlerwiserfree t1_it1zxum wrote

When did “culture” start to mean “conspicuous consumption” as opposed to “art”?

I think I find something sublime in art quite often.

Whether it’s just a particularly skilled or intense or emotional performance of a song or a dance; or the character arc of a character I really care for in a piece of media with a longer story… art tends to be what gives me that feeling of just wanting to gasp.

Just wanting to… point at it and say, “This! This! Look at this! Just look at this!!”

I feel this way about things all over anyone’s highbrow-lowbrow spectrum, with no regard to those distinctions.

If what “culture” means to someone is the food selfies you post online to show off, I’d recommend picking up a book. Any book.

…. Stop me before I start talking about how sublime my favorite character is, but like…!!!

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SuperSirVexSmasher t1_it23grj wrote

Culture as in humans doing what humans do. Archaeology examines human culture, they do this by examining things like tools left behind. Culture is the thing that humans do. You get what I mean.

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