Everyday Amazement

I'm not sure how coherent this post will be so apologies in advance!

Sometimes I will get distracted by something, usually something small, because it amazes me. A few months ago I was in the garden and was completely amazed just watching a bee in the flowers. During my degree work I never cease to be amazed how tiny cells in the brain work to make us self aware intelligent creatures.

My question to you all is, is the amazement we might feel on occasion because we do not take enough time out to consider these things. If we were all more aware of the little (and big) things, would we feel amazement or would it just feel normal?

I think we should all take time out to be amazed by something, but I wonder if perhaps we do not spend enough time on it.

I'm not really looking for any definitive answer, just your thoughts on it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QyVZrV3d3o

For myself, I know that sometimes, now and again, my perspective shifts enough that even the most commonplace events take on a profound significance, It always catches me by surprise. It's truly beautiful when it happens.

I think it is a nice thing that as humans we have this surprised and amazed. Perhaps it is a underrated difference between us and other living creatures.

Mindfulness is, for me, attending to the qualities of that moment. They are each perfect.

Once, long ago, I walked in the pre-dawn of cold Spring morning. The world wore a sugar-coat of delicate frost. As the sun rose and touched with light the frost, it melted. As it was transformed from ice to water it reflected the sunlight brightly. A line of melting frost; a delicate receding wave of light. Only at the edge between frost and dawn, moving away east across the land that still lay in shadow, a thin rainbow ribbon whose whole existence was a brief eruption of beauty.

Thankyou Alan, that was very beautiful and poetic.

I think I kinda know what you are talking about - Walking around in the garden is an excellent thing. I do it a lot, too. When observing those little flyers, as they gather nectar and pollen and whatnot for themselves and/or the hive, I can't help but realize their connectedness to the world.
The world is full of stuff that is amazing - and other than celebrity gossip and soap operas, I have yet to find something that is not, on some level, amazing. It always makes me wonder, how much lucky coincident it took to lead to our exact existence as we know it. Not to mention the millions of years of evolution. Chaos, yet harmony.

Edan wrote: I think it is a nice thing that as humans we have this surprised and amazed. Perhaps it is a underrated difference between us and other living creatures.

I doubt that it's only us humans that can be amazed. I know my cat can be surprised.

Joe wrote:

Edan wrote: I think it is a nice thing that as humans we have this surprised and amazed. Perhaps it is an underrated difference between us and other living creatures.

I doubt that it's only us humans that can be amazed. I know my cat can be surprised.

Surprise is different to amazement I think, but my knowledge of animal biology and psychology is limited.

A word I like is "awe", the kind of dumbstruck sensation of trying to take in the wonder of something we experience.

My parent's dog has displayed awe a few times.. usually when a particularly large bit of meat has been flung from the dinner table by one of my infant kids.

Suffice to say it didn't last long... neither the moment of awe nor the meat

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOVmVMJEhg8