23 Piece that will Drive Your Existential Wonder
Often when we go through our day to day lives, we forget about how magical and mysterious our existence-- and the existence of whoever or whatever else-- really are. I don’t know about you, but sometimes I’ll wake up in the middle of the night and be jolted by sudden amazement and wonder about a specific existential thought. Or I’ll be working at my bookstore job and then have a moment where I pause and am like “wait, I’m real? I’m here? I work at a bookstore in Texas?” Other times I’ll be in awe of how I ended up in Y place after being in X place, and at the passing of time and and the ways in which my life has changed across it.
If you’ve found your way over to this post, maybe you have existential ponderings, too– whether they be of wonder or dread. Or maybe you haven’t had them in a while and want to. Although existential dread can cause overwhelm and be debilitating, existential wonder can be grounding and peace inducing. Being someone who has been very existentially aware since I was a kid, I’ve experienced the pleasurable and painful sides of it, where existentialism expands and limits me, respectively.
It’s also important to remember that existential dread can fuel existential wonder…for example, the dread of your mortality can lead you to committing to something bigger than yourself and motivate you to make your life meaningful and a lot more fulfilling. The finiteness of your life can lead you to valuing it more, motivating you to leave a mark that continues to make impact beyond you being alive.
I’m going to list several pieces of existential wonder to help inspire you, ground you and move you-- and maybe even scare you a bit...
1. SONDER
This is actually one of my favorite words, and a newer one you likely won’t find in a typical dictionary. “Sonder” refers to the often sudden realization or awareness that other people have lives as complex and as intricate as your own.
I am so in love with this word and with this concept that I wrote one of my college admission essays on this nearly a decade ago. It’s just so…cool to think about the possibilities and mysteries of different worlds embodied within different people and their lives as you continue to be engaged in your own. There is so much going on, all the time. How is it possible that so many different things exist at once, and that despite the large extents of various lives being lived, we often forget that there is so much more outside of our individual bubbles? Even when we are aware that there is more beyond our bubble and we are intentionally seeking out, there are still so much that we don't know that we don't know.
For example, while I’m typing away on my laptop at my favorite coffee shop, there are kids being put to bed across the world. Or maybe other kids are swinging their lunchboxes as they walk to school, laughing with their friends. Someone somewhere is journaling blissfully, or painfully, in a different coffee shop somewhere else, or while sitting on the bare grass blanketed by the bright sun. People are busy at work in their day jobs, whether that be in a corporate office, at home, in the hospital, in a classroom, or wherever else. Some college students are engaged with an interesting lecture from their professor, others are struggling to stay awake from having stayed up to study or finish assignments from the night before. There is an added sense of wonder when I think about the college classrooms I used to frequent existing beyond me, perhaps being filled with students at this very moment, or being empty. And what about the multiple homes I've lived in throughout my childhood-- what goes on within their walls in this very moment? Places and people continue to exist in this very moment even after you are no longer present in your association to them. The significant people and places of your memories and past continue to exist even after you are no longer in present association with them, and they become important to someone else. New York City is teeming with people, and gyms and outdoor parks are filled with weight lifters, runners and walkers. People are looking down from airplane windows like I do when I fly, wondering about the life going on beneath them. Or other passengers are dozing off in their seats as they fly high above the ground.
2. HUMAN POTENTIAL IN CONTRAST TO HUMAN LIMITATIONS
The last time I was on a plane, in addition to my sonder, I couldn’t help but think about how amazing it is that humans are capable of so much. Yet at the same time, we are bound by our mortality. We build tall buildings and plan for them with great care and intellect.
We create planes, cars, trains and craft them with care to make sure that they operate safety while also efficiently. We spend hours upon hours, days upon days on creative and intellectual works like books and movies, paintings, videos, etc; and while we are the vessels for them and manifest so much from ourselves, we all will die eventually and our creations will outlive us. And so will their impacts.
How many writers and artists died before their works became world famous? Even after our death, despite our mortal bounds, we fuel the lives of those who come after us. It’s so strange how life gives us so much power and infiniteness on a collective level, yet at the same time limits us individually. The scientists among us invent or discover new things that we previously deemed impossible to come up with. And after they die, scientists of further generations expand on their knowledge and inventions. In other words, we are capable of great, even seemingly impossible, things– but alas, we are incapable of escaping death.
Despite our potentials, we end up perishing eventually– but the vast manifestations of our existences live on beyond us. Our existence lives on beyond us– we continue to exist beyond our death– another point of existential wonder in and of itself.
3. MYSTERIES OF WHAT IS BEYOND THE EARTH
Do “aliens” exist? If so, what do they look like? How do they communicate? Aren’t we aliens, too? Is the multiverse actually a thing? Or even if we wouldn’t look at them and think “aliens”– does life form exist similar to humans or other animals that exist on earth like cats, dogs, fish? Or are they something completely different? What if there are people or people-looking beings on different planets? And how many galaxies really are there? How big really is the universe?
Sometimes I lay awake at night thinking about the small dot of where I am and imagine traveling far out, in awe of the vastness of the unknown. It’s awe-inspiring and humbling to look up at the sky whether it’s the sun and clouds against a light blue sky, or silver stars shining against a blanket of dark blue or black or the colorful in betweens from sunrises and sunsets.
Especially at night time, many of us can’t help but wonder what is out there. It’s cool to imagine yourself at a specific point on earth, and then zooming out, beyond the sky you can see until you are officially in outer space, able to see the other planets in our solar system.
It’s even more wondrous to imagine yourself traveling even further, further away in different directions. What is above, below, east, west, diagonal? If heaven and hell exist, do they exist somewhere far away beyond these galaxies? Or is it funny to consider the existence of heaven and hell when there is so much vastness and countless galaxies and so much of the unknown beyond our human comprehension? Conversely, is it foolish to think that it’s foolish to discredit the possibility of heaven and hell when there is so much out there beyond human comprehension?
Also, where does space begin and end? Or does it not have an end and beginning, with the universe continuously expanding? Is the universe infinite in a way that cannot be conceptualized by our human minds?
4. MYSTERIES OF WHAT IS WITHIN THE EARTH
Many times when we get bored with the monotony or mundaneness of our daily lives, we fantasize about venturing elsewhere and are disillusioned by the idea, often unconsciously, that there isn’t much to seek in what is proximate to us. In reality, there’s so much to be enchanted with throughout our planet, near and far.
Similar to “sonder” where we wonder about the existence of other people, what if we wonder about other beings and their existences? What does a typical day look like for a cat or a dog? Or a cheetah or zebra in the wild? A snake in the forest? What is happening at this very moment in the Amazon forest? And what about the oceans– what is going on at the deepest layers? What are fish doing at this very moment? Octopuses and squids? Dolphins? What are surfers experiencing as they ride waves across the world?
How beautiful is the image of the sun shining down on restless waves in one part of the world, and how scary yet beautiful are angry ocean waves under the stormy night sky (where hopefully no one is venturing)? What do the visual perceptions of the people experiencing the ocean at this current moment, relaxing on the beach or watching the sunset, look like? What is going on in the mountains of Appalachia, and the marshes of Iceland? And in the environments of the animals in various African safaris?
5. OUR EXISTENCE ITSELF– NO ONE KNOWS 100% HOW WE GOT HERE
Yes, we have various theories of how we got here and religion-based beliefs and even spiritually inspired theories of how we got here. And of course, we have proof of evolution. At the same time, we still don’t know exactly how the root of life and even more of human consciousness came to be for certain.
Even for those who believe in the source being God, we still don’t have a hundred percent consensus-based proof of how “God” made the first life form and the conditions for it appear. For instance, how did this solar system come to be, and how did our existence come to be with such unlikely factors making our complex existence possible on the earth?
When you especially think about both the possibility and impossibility of life beyond the earth and our solar system, this question becomes even more curiously baffling. And then of course when thinking of the various galaxies beyond our own galaxy existing and the limited information we have of them, the question of how they even came to be in the first place becomes even more stunning. How could so much exist?
And then how could something as specific and complex as our DNA exist? It’s hard not to be shocked with awe. And this is even more so when we think about how there is so much that we don’t know that we don’t know about. How did so much even come to be? How is it possible? What does this say about the reality of potential, and how does it defy the limits of potential that we carry in our day to day human lives?
6. THE MYSTERY OF WHETHER GOD DOES OR DOES NOT EXIST
I believe in God most of the time. I grew up with a Muslim background. I am agnostic now; however, many of my spiritual and deist beliefs are heavily inspired by Islam’s concept of God, especially when it comes to a transcendental description depicting God as the source of everything good.
I also consider “God” to be the source of perfect morality and ethics, and thus I see God as the source of human consciousness where these things are recognized and sought. Even though many spiritual and religious beliefs are subjective and purely faith-based when arguing for the existence of God, I also see parts that are scientific and miraculous rooted in reality.
I often see good arguments from both sides arguing the case for God’s existence and non-existence. Everything has to have a source, doesn’t it? Especially when we consider the complexities and possibilities that exist. At the same time, we don’t know a hundred percent if the source for these things is necessarily “God”– at least on a strictly logical level. Or at least, not “God” in the sense of Abrahamic texts or other religious texts. What if “God” is much vaster than what is said about God in these religious texts (the Qur’an, Bible, or Torah)– or at the very least, what if God’s vastness far more than our human comprehension from these texts?
There are so many questions inspiring both existential wonder and dread when we think about these various possibilities. Or maybe there does exist some sort of energy that people mistake for “God” or the “universe” or even “source” that serves to act in favor of people, even if this source is not discerning in a moral or ethical basis.
I personally hope that God does exist and is the source of moral and ethical perfection, and wish to reject neutrality from this God when it comes to morality and ethics. This hope is in large part of me desiring justice to be objectively embedded into the fabric of existence. In other words, I hope that if God does exist, that They are one of justice and goodness rooted in morality, ethics and love.
7. THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT
Isn’t it crazy when we think about how a single, seemingly insignificant event plays a pivotal role in the occurrence of something significant? If you hadn’t made a last minute decision to check out a new coffee shop and changed your navigation for directions to it on your initial way to the one you always go to, you wouldn’t have met the love of your life.
If you hadn’t picked up that book, you wouldn’t have gotten inspired to go on that trip that changed your life, and you wouldn’t have shared your story of personal transformation with people in your life that in turn pushed them to get out of their comfort zones to pursue their own fulfillment. The original author of the book that you read inspired you, and many more beyond your cycle in return. If you hadn’t risked being perceived as socially awkward when striking up a conversation with a stranger at the grocery store, you would have missed out on having a great friend. This friendship led both of you to mutually connecting with your authentic selves, exchanging ideas and garnering support that led you to create even more meaningful connections and bring even more people together. Had you left your house a few minutes later, you would have missed running into someone you love at the park where they were leaving just as you arrived, getting a much needed hug that day. Your improved mood from that interaction may have guided you to show up as a kinder person to strangers that day or it may have stimulated your creativity, giving you courage and strength to continue working on a project that you’re passionate about.
What possibilities are you currently missing out on by resisting getting outside of your comfort zone? What magical outcomes have you made happen for yourself already because you decided to take a chance on something new? What words have you conveyed to a classmate or a student of yours that led them to changing their life? Or what have you mentioned in a conversation with a friend at a coffeeshop that positively changed the life of an eavesdropper who got inspired with a new idea or gained a new perspective that gave them courage to embrace and express their authenticity? What “normal” thing do you do habitually in your day to day life that has impacted you or others, which you are in oblivion to the positive impact of? The thing is, you may come to know a lot of these things, and you will still be in oblivion to a lot of others.
There is beauty to knowing, and there is also beauty to not knowing. Remember to be grateful in reflection as you think about how the Butterfly Effect has manifested in beneficial things happening for you in your life thus far.
8. SYNCHRONICITES
There are many fun coincidences in our lives– but there are also nearly impossible outcomes that happen that make you take a step back.
A few years ago, my family, I and our family friends were traveling in Florida in December. A couple of years before that, my parents had met a fellow US American couple when they were traveling in India. They had connected digitally on Facebook, but hadn’t kept up with each other much beyond that. As far as my parents knew, this couple lived in Ohio and were lovers of travel; to them, my parents lived in Virginia and also traveled often. I’m getting chills as I write about this– imagine the surprise when we are randomly walking on a beach in Florida at sunset and this happens: someone is calling my dad’s name. That someone is the couple they met in India. Apparently, this couple had moved to this exact area in Florida and happened to be taking a walk at the same exact time we were, in the same exact place. They had no idea that we were visiting, and we had no idea that they lived there.
How was is possible that such a coincidence happened? Was it really a coincidence at all? Wouldn’t it have been even funnier had that couple and my parents been in India and not conversed with each other at all, only to cross each other’s paths again in oblivion to having been in the exact same place they were in just a couple of years prior?
This also makes me think– how often have I, or you, as an individual crossed paths with someone you were acquainted with or even close to, in oblivion? Perhaps you happened to be in the same room as someone you went to preschool or elementary school with at a layover. Or maybe you drove in opposite parallels with a former friend on the highway, going in different directions– both literally and figuratively.
Also, how often do things show up in our life based on some form of energetic, metaphysical alignment happening rather than by “coincidence,” if the thing about energy is real? Or what if sometimes things show up because of genuine coincidence, and other times it’s because of some other metaphysical reason? And if very unlikely things like the beach incident I mentioned are truly an utter coincidence, isn’t it even more astonishing when a coincidence like this one occurs when there are only practical factors at play?
9. FLOW STATE
If you know, you know. That wondrous, transcendental feeling of being at one with what you are creating is a magical one.
How is such a beautiful feeling and experience possible? In addition to finding wonder in the euphoria of being in flow state, you may also be amazed at yourself as you unleash potential you didn’t realize you had within you all this time. Isn’t it so weird that when we’re in flow, all of our amazing ideas and competencies come to easily to us, and seem to familiar to us, that we’re incredulous towards how we could have forgotten about these in the first place? How did we convince ourselves that this state, these parts of ourselves, were so far from us, or didn’t exist in the first place?
It’s such an amazing feeling. And it’s important that we prevent ourselves from gaslighting ourselves from the accessibility of the magic within us– we do this by making a conscious and continuous decision to stop letting shame gatekeep ourselves from ourselves. Because it is when we feel safe to be perceived and also when we feel safe to perceive ourselves and are in touch with something bigger than ourselves aligned with the values most important to us that we are able to get into flow. And it is one of the most beautiful feelings in the world.
It’s so interesting how our self worth determines our abilities to express ourselves– the more connected we are to ourselves from a place of internalized worthiness where we both know and feel that we are allowed to access the magic inside of us and beyond us, that is when we are able to BE the best in our creations and work.
10. TECHNOLOGY
If you really stop to think about it, isn’t it weird and amazing how cars, computers, phones, the internet and even books exist? How did people figure out and invent codes to make things connect and produce? Isn’t it weird and amazing how rapidly ideas spread in this day and age? How is is possible that photoshop can make such creative pictures, merging the unreal with the real, fantasy with reality? I’m amazed at human capability.
How did people put together codes and algorithms from scratch to create whole hardwares and softwares, cars, planes and rockets while guaranteeing the standards of safety that they meet today? Isn’t it crazy that thousands and even hundreds of years ago, people had to rely on letters and physical transportation and face to face communication in order to communicate with people across great distances, and in modern day technology somehow allows us to reach people on the other side of the world with a simple click of a button? And not only can we talk to each other across thousands of miles, but we can even see each other’s faces.
11. TIME
When I was writing the essay about sonder for my college admissions personal statement as I mentioned earlier, I remember writing about how as I was writing then in that moment, I was in the attic and accompanied with sounds of the fan whirring. It’s wild to me to consider how that point in time has passed, almost ten years ago, when it still seems so familiar.
How is it really as far back in time and distance as it is? Sometimes when I’m waking up in my current bed in my current home, in the dark or with my eyes closed, I’ll imagine waking up in my old home in Virginia or even in the one from my childhood in Massachusetts. I’ll convince myself with details of my previous bedrooms, half expecting myself to wake up in those previous rooms. When I was seven years old and in my mom’s Honda van, I would look out of the window and think about how the moment I brought awareness to would be a memory just minutes, hours or days later– and then when I recalled that point of awareness again, I would use that as a point for recall in the next time. And other times I would have brief moments looking out the window as we drove, thinking “I’m really real.”
Before I even knew it to be a concept as a child, I was already having existential wonder. It only manifested deeper and deeper as I matured into adulthood.
12. LOVE & CONNECTION
Sure, it can be argued that love is an evolutionary result designed to secure our attachment to other people in order to promote our survival. But if you think about it beyond that– love is still a miracle. Love doesn’t only exist through attachment, and love is not limited to fleeting human feelings. Love is so much more than that.
Feminist writer bell hooks significantly deepened my understanding of love as a value, practice and philosophy going beyond our mere biology and rather being something willed with human consciousness. If that sounds like a topic you are also interested in exploring deeper, I highly recommend her book, All About Love. Love that goes beyond convenience and fleeting feelings caused by dopamine and other feel good chemicals is a miracle.
People consciously choosing love is a miracle. People act through the value of love in their activism even when they have privilege compared to the people they advocate for, despite having the option of staying in a closed, comfortable bubble where they stay blissfully ignorant to the wrongs of the world. New to-be parents get their life together and spend great effort in creating stability for their children even when they previously didn’t think they would be capable of taking care of themselves, let alone another human. Lovers go out of their way to heal, to have hard conversations and to take care of each other to ensure the stability and passion of their relationship. People choose to adopt pets and to fall deep in love with them despite knowing that grief will follow when they lose those beloved beings. People still choose to love despite knowing that there will be grief and pain with inevitable losses.
Yes, attachment based on love can be self serving. But isn’t it a miracle how being selfless for the good of another person you deeply care about becomes a means of individual interest for yourself at the same time– especially when you consider love to be something bigger than your individual happiness? Human connections and the love fostered through them are also miraculous.
Love literally heals– and not just among humans. There are multiple stories of injured animals on the brink of death recovering and living long, happy lives when they are saved by a human who loves them and believes in them. You also see how the power of believing in someone and someone believing in you have tangible positive outcomes. Love and connection are miracles– and essential for not just our survival, but for us to thrive.
13. OUR BRAINS & HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS
The power and capabilities our brains and minds hold are actually crazy when you think about it. How did such complexity and potency come to be? It’s pretty cool that we use our mind to observe our mind itself, while at the same time exercising a consciousness separate from it when practicing mindfulness. I
t’s so weird and awesome that our brains can produce new neurons and physical connections based on conscious decisions we make in reprogramming it through things like affirmations and new habits, with no surgery required. It’s also interesting that we can summon our consciousness when we bring awareness to ourselves, and that our unconscious minds can be very at odds with what we consciously want.
If you aren’t already aware, our subconscious mind makes up about 90-95 percent of our thoughts and beliefs, and there are many view that are embedded within this large part of our minds that we may not consciously desire or agree with.
By summoning your consciousness, you can be a curious observer of your most inner thoughts and beliefs as well as the more obvious ones. Our unconscious minds also process so much information, and that information affects who we are, what we believe and how we show up, regardless of whether we want them to program us or not. And again, the good news is that we can exercise our control by being selective about what we allow to program our minds; for instance, you can choose to listen to music with empowering lyrics instead of degrading ones, limiting social media usage to avoid comparison and being continuously triggered in ways to promote cynicism and negativity biases, and read books that give you hope in humanity and inspire you to believe in love and show up better for yourself and others.
Again, how did such intricate things such as the human brain and mind come to be?
14. SENSATIONS & THE OVERALL HUMAN EXPERIENCE
Our abilities to experience sights, sounds, physical and emotional feelings, tastes and smells are existentially awe-inspiring when to stop to think about it. Of course, it’s important to be aware that many do not have one or more of these abilities. That also begs questions such as these: how do you explain colors to a blind person? How do you describe music to a deaf person? In your own words, how do you actually define “taste” and “color”? What exactly makes different shades of blue similar to each other and under the category of “blue” even though they’re not exactly the same?
How did different flowers and landscapes evolve into so many varying hues? How do people keep seeking out pleasure without enjoying it with our modern day overload of dopamine? Aren’t powerful orgasms resulting from mutual, deep connection between partners transcendently perceivable and awe-inspiring? Don’t runner’s highs make you feel out of this world and often a spiritual experience?
15. HUMAN DIVERSITY
Isn’t it amazing how we have so many different religions, cultures and their traditions, varying ideologies, and varying genetics across the human race? And isn’t it also beautiful how despite different languages spoken and different beliefs internalized across the world, we are still connected by so much of our sameness?
We’re still connected by our humanity. We still crave love and to be significant. We still crave purpose and belonging. And even when there are so many differing ideas and spiritualities, so many times, they share common core messages pertaining to human fulfillment and meaning, including committing to something bigger than the individual self– a further manifestation of human unity.
It’s so interesting to consider different ways of life and worldviews, whether those align with your own or challenge them– whether they give you comfort in affirmation through agreement of your beliefs, or trigger dread within you as you venture out of the familiar bubble you may have accepted as comprehensive truth.
As I mentioned earlier in this post, I am an agnostic person now who believes in God most of the time, and I used to be a pretty religious and practicing Muslim up until my early twenties. When I was religious, I remember having both curiosity and dread when considering atheist friends and acquaintances. I put myself in their shoes and wondered what it was like to believe that there was nothing after this life, fearing that possibility. Despite being taught that it was the biggest sin in Islam to associate partners to or to worship anyone other the one true God believed in by those of the three biggest Abrahamic religions, I couldn’t help but be existentially curious about Hindu deities and practices, alongside Buddhist beliefs– and experiencing a pull towards them.
Being naturally curious towards what was forbidden, I wondered what it would be like to be Christian and celebrate Christian holidays and go to church or what it would be like to be Jewish and take part in Jewish holidays as a Jewish person. And I love that I was always curious about different religions; I even ended up majoring in Religion & Culture as my primary major in my undergraduate studies. I so often see people getting triggered and forcing ignorance upon themselves, confining themselves to a bubble of oblivion under the guise of piety and moral righteousness often at the disregard of ethics when they are faced with opportunities to learn about people and lifestyles different from their own.
As a Muslim student in college, I would often get approached by fellow students in Christian ministries who made it obvious that they wanted to convert me and exhibited a superiority and savior complex when they suspected me to be Muslim. It was interesting to see that they knew little to nothing about Islam, eager to talk up their religious beliefs without trying to understand or be knowledgeable about the basics of my own. If you are truly secure in your beliefs, faith and values, you are able to face and appreciate diversity instead of perceiving them as threats. Or even if you do feel threatened, you are committed to finding truth in ways aligned with humility, knowing that opposing beliefs do not discredit your faith.
Acknowledging differences among people is a sign of being secure in yourself and ultimately in what you believe in. And we’re also diverse in our personalities, strengths and weaknesses within and across cultures.
16. THE FEMALE BODY
One of the most prominent existential thoughts I have that often leads me to being confident that there is an intentional creator or intentional energy source for our human existences is about how intricate the female body is. How is it possible that our bodies (I myself am a cis het woman) evolved to have our cycles?
Even if you consider evolution on a very practical level, our cycles coming to be in our complex human bodies is still miraculous and awe-inducing. The fact that female bodies also create life and give birth amazes me. And have so much capacity for pleasure, for example in the ways that female orgasms are so powerful with several nerve endings. And female intuition is so powerful, in the ways in which we are aware of knowledge and patterns, danger and safety even before we have logical, “hard” proof to support what we know. Our bodies are so beautiful in their similarities and diversities, and so intelligently designed.
17. NATURE & BIODIVERSITY
There are so many species and varieties within species. There were so many cool animals like dinosaurs and mammoths that existed wayyyyy before us humans came to be. What would it be like to be in the day of the life of a dinosaur? And the ways in which ecosystems support each other are nothing short of amazing. Within the forests, oceans, arctic areas, grass beneath you and far beneath that– there is a LOTTT going on.
Mentioning this, I know I have a responsibility to remind us to love Mother Earth better. I’ll have to think of ways in which I am helping with that and then write a future blog post so that my integrity inspires you to honor Her better and make efforts for sustaining future generations. Remember that YOU are part of the natural system as a whole.
18. PSYCHOSOCIAL PHENOMENA
Isn’t it interesting how trends happen? How come many if not most of us end up conforming to things even if we don’t agree with them or like in just to “fit in” and how many of us defy them? How is mass hysteria created, and how do people get sucked into cults? Of course, these are more negative, yet still fascinating, examples nonetheless.
And how do communities form, and how are they different from the beginning of humanity to current modern day where capitalism and technology are designed to keep us more separate from each other and dominate so many areas of the world?
How do trends happen and become so popular? How do some fashion trends pick up speed, and others fizzle out? How do religions grow from small to large scales, and how do certain religious or spiritual beliefs continue to be resiliently held onto despite threats of persecution and marginalization? How do people maintain such deep spiritedness in their values? Conversely from the negative, how do people band together in large numbers to protest atrocities on national to even global scales?
How does the Butterfly Effect play a role in promoting more of human goodness? How do you and I, on individual levels, get to initiate and contribute?
19. CREATIVITY & SELF EXPRESSION
Aren’t our imaginations and ability to create so magical?
How do we come up with such wonderful, brilliant, clever ideas? How do book authors craft such perfect stories with carefully devised plots that leave their audiences in awe? How do we get into flow time and time again and unlock so many ideas and connections among them from within us? I’m amazed at the amount of endurance and focus we are able to give towards a creative project or hobby, especially when it is so complex.
How did we gain consciousness to create and appreciate art and beauty? How did we recognize our bodies as vessels of expression through dance? And recognize beauty in words, making writing and talking art forms as well? This all of this manifest from a metaphysical source? How is it possible for us to be aware of the beauty and value of creativity in the first place– something that goes beyond mere survival? And how is creativity such a universal part of human being, across cultures?
I also learned within the past couple of years that not only does creativity give us deeper meaning and fulfillment in life, but that it is also an essential part of human health.
20. SPIRITUALITY & METAPHYSICS
Are ghosts and demons and angels actually real? Do we get reincarnated? Do we actually have souls? Are there a heaven and a hell, and is there a god or some kind of universal authority that will judge us for our character in this life before deciding what our next fate is? These may sound outlandish at times, but hey– isn’t our human existence also nearly impossible and crazy to consider?
How come people in certain regions report more frequent paranormal stories than others? Sure, there a lot of ghost stories and other paranormal encounters that are contrived from hallucinations and lies, but not all of them can be…right? And how do we further explain these when there are multiple people having recalling witnessing or experiencing the same exact paranormal event, their details aligning? Are these products a manifestation of our collective imagination, and rooted in some psychological and biological phenomenon that has not been tangibly proved yet, or… did these paranormal events truly happen? What do we do when we have even more vivid, accurate details that don’t make scientific, logical sense for us to have… like the several cases of where young kids recall vivid details of past lives of which, when research is done, are proven to be true?
If you want to go down a rabbit hole, a quick internet search will give you some intriguing stories. If you really want to go even deeper, there are various Reddit threads with several stories. When my family cat Izzy passed away earlier this year, I spent a lot of time on Reddit trying to find hope and proof of an afterlife, desperate to know that I would be reunited with her again. I encountered several stories where people saw tangible signs and even saw, heard or smelled their deceased beloved pets– and this did not just happen with pets… people reported comin face to face with spirits of human loved ones. Again, are these stories even true in the first place? Maybe not many, if not most of them. But I’m willing to bet that not all of them can be false. What do you think?
21. IDENTITY
Who are you? Who am I? What shaped you into who you are today, and what events are affecting you to become who you will be months from now? Years from now? Are you really being your authentic self, or will you discover later on that you’ve been suppressing your authentic self to perform and to gain the approval of others? Or maybe you’re on the right path to embodying your authenticity, but there is more maturity you are garnering with life experience that will allow you to understand it and embody it deeper in connection to better values.
What are all of the different multifaceted parts of you, and how will they change over time? Are you still the same person as you evolve into different versions of yourself, or would you consider them all different? And what about the people that you love– who are they really— in the past, present and future? What values shape us individually, and then collectively? What collective values shape us individually?
22. OBLIVION
What things in your present day are significant parts of your life that shaped you into who you are today, but you did not realize would play such an important role when they were first introduced to you? How did life turn out so much differently than you expected it to? And how did you turn out much differently than you had initially expected to?
There are people and things in your life currently that will be of interest for you to reflect on years from now. Who will you meet in the future? Who will you fall deeply in love with, where you find a sense of belonging so beautiful beyond what you could have previously imagined? What opportunities will be presented to you? What kinds of grief and joy will you experience? Who will you be for the better?
Which paths will you take? How would your life had looked different if you took one path over the other in the past, and how will it look different in the future based on whether you take one path over the other in the present time?
23. DUALITIES OF GOOD AND EVIL IN HUMAN NATURE
No one is fully good or fully evil. Isn’t cognitive dissonance a weird thing to observe in others– and of course, within our individual selves?
How do people continuously embody kindness and then also act on selfish motives? How are some people incredibly good people, being famously known for their service towards other people– and then how are some people incredibly horrible? How do people from abusive, terrible situations turn out to be amazing human beings with great character growing up despite their situations, while others continue to perpetuate the toxic cycles?
It’s weird to explore our own dark sides and acknowledge their existence, even though we may hold values that greatly contradict them. It’s so interesting and hope-inspiring to see how people from hate groups like the KKK completely transform, realizing the evils of their previous ways and pursuing equality and goodness despite all of the indoctrination and deep hatred conditioned within them previously. How do we bring out the good in ourselves and others, even when they have been so far gone?
I hope these 23 pieces of wonder gave you chills and even made you jump a little bit. If you have anything to add to the list, I would love to know. Remember that there are worlds within you and outside of you, and far beyond what you know.
Let these guide you to living life with purpose and staying hopeful, using light of human goodness and possibility to guide you. Existentialism can make you feel shaken, but it can also ground you.
I hope these 23 pieces of wonder gave you chills and even made you jump a little bit. If you have anything to add to the list, I would love to know. Remember that there are worlds within you and outside of you, and far beyond what you know.
Let these guide you to living life with purpose and staying hopeful, using light of human goodness and possibility to guide you. Existentialism can make you feel shaken, but it can also ground you.
I hope your own existentialism brings your awareness to what really matters and leads you to directing more of your energy and focus on those things, and I also hope that you also claim your energy back from the things that don’t– or at least, shouldn’t.
Thank you for reading & wondering with me 💙
